


as we know it

by cold_century



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, F/F, Minor Violence, Post-Apocalypse, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2018-09-21 08:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 68,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9540146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cold_century/pseuds/cold_century
Summary: “If it takes the end of the world for us to meet, it will have been worth it”The end of the world brought with it a deadly virus, intent on killing all alien life in it's path. Now Alex has to find a way to save her sister, by any means necessary. One thing she doesn't expect to find on the road is help, and when it comes down to it, she learns that the truth is sometimes better left unsaid.





	1. radio nowhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is loosely based on The Road by Cormac McCarthy, but the majority of the Supergirl related plot is my own. I can't promise this will be a particularly light and happy read, but there will be some joy (as much as you can find in the apocalypse). Additional tags will be added when they become relevant. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy it!

The world is slowly dying. 

Every day is colder than the one that came before, turning greyer from the ever expanding ceiling of clouds that separates them from God knows what. Alex thinks they’re clouds, but she can’t be sure; maybe the sky has just turned grey. Empty. A infinite expanse of nothing. Somewhere in her memory she see flashes of blue sky, a brilliant, calming colour punctuated by wispy, white, pure clouds. Sometimes she thinks that world was a dream, lost in myth and legend, in books never to be read.

She thinks it’s Spring, but there’s no way of telling. No blossom on the trees, no anything on the trees because they have been charred to resemble giant matchsticks until they fall and crumble into nothing like the rest of the world around them. Spring was a time for new life; but the animals are long gone and the only thing certain about life now is that at some point it will end. 

The coward in her wishes she hadn’t fought so hard in the beginning, that if she hadn’t, she would be at peace. But she’s battled on, like a wounded soldier, not for honour, not for glory but for the same reason she has always fought; Kara.

She’s fighting to save Kara. Because there had been a virus, a terrible virus and it had killed the aliens first. And Kara had been safe, she had been somewhere out of reach, but now she is in more danger than she has ever been in. And Alex had made a promise to save her, to get her to some lab in Boston where they had heard whispers of an antidote to the virus being created in the early days. She doesn’t even know if the lab is still standing, and she has no way of finding out. This could all just be a futile effort to save her sister. But Kara couldn’t save herself.

“Where do you think we are?”

Alex has lost track of how many times Kara has asked that question, and each time she is no closer to finding the real answer. Nowhere is all that exists now, boundaries gone, division destroyed by the cruel monotony of destruction that had swept through the country, maybe even the world. 

“Colorado, maybe,” she guesses.

“How long has it been?” Kara asks.

Alex lost count of the days long ago, but it couldn’t have been more than a few months. Everything had happened so quickly, and yet her life before this seemed like an eon ago.

Something like guilt flashes across Kara’s face and Alex knows exactly what she’s thinking; if she still had her powers, they wouldn’t be here. But there was no changing the past. They didn’t know what the virus was going to do, they didn’t know the world was literally going to just end. And Kara had been a hero, right up until the moment she had used up all her powers, trying to save as many people as she could. And now there was no sun, no fake light, no DEO lab where she could recharge. Nothing that would heal her. The grey sky was a permanent Kryptonite. 

“We’re not even close,” Kara says. “If I could just -”

“You can’t, Kara,” Alex says. “We just have to stick to the road.”

She readjusts the rucksack on her shoulder, ignoring the ache rising up her neck.

“Come on, let’s just keep walking. We’ll find something.”

Or someone.

 

They walk for days, not even stopping to sleep until Kara nearly collapses in a coughing fit, the sound echoing terribly in the silence of the road they stumble along. In the distance, through the misty rain that soaks them to the bones, Alex can see the faint outlines of houses. Occupied or not, she doesn’t know. She isn’t even sure if she wants to stay long enough to find out. 

Alex half carries, half drags her sister through the town. It looks long since abandoned. She doubts anyone made it out and she doubts even less that they left anything of use behind. 

“Alex, we have to stop.”

“Yeah, yeah, we will,” she says, eyes darting around the corners, her instincts and training kicking in again, hand resting on the butt of the gun tucked into the back of her belt. 

There’s a building just up ahead that looks like it once was a town hall, a centre of decisions and politics and community. And now all that remains is crumbling walls, discoloured stone and, if they’re lucky, supplies and a warm place to camp for the night. 

“We’ll be warm in here,” she says, letting go of Kara momentarily so she can slide a bike chain from the rucksack through the handles of the door. 

Their footsteps echo on dirty stone floors. She reaches out blindly for Kara as her eyes adjust to the dark, blinking rapidly until the shapes become clearer and she can make out upturned tables, broken chairs and fluorescent lights which have smashed on the floor.

Kara falls asleep almost as soon as she sits down, back against a desk. Alex hesitates, unwilling to leave Kara alone, but the need to search for something useful grows with each second she waits.

The side rooms hold nothing of value, just empty files, discarded ammo shells, plastic bottles, cans, wrappers. It could be worse, she thinks, shuddering as she remembers the stench of death that had stained the back of her throat for days after one investigation into the place they had camped for the night.

The final room she steps into has tally marks on the walls, etched in with pencil. She counts them, running her fingers over the soft bumps of graphite, wondering idly what they mean. 

“Alex?”

She jumps, turning to see Kara standing in the doorway.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah… I just didn’t know where you were,” Kara says and guilt spikes in Alex’s gut. “What’re you looking for?”

“Not sure,” Alex says, pacing around the room. She sits down at the desk, fiddling with the dials of an old radio transmitter, flicking the switches. “But I know we’re alone.”

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, there’s a whirring sound and lights flicker on the radio system, a low hum coming from the receiver. 

“Shit!”

“What did you do?” Kara asks, eyes wide, joining Alex by the radio, showing more energy than she has done in days. “How did you fix it?”

“I didn’t,” Alex says, her fingers hovering above the buttons, scared that if she touches it, it will break. “How is that even possible?”

“Maybe there’s some power lines still standing,” Kara suggests, and although it sounds impossible, there is no denying what’s in front of them. “Maybe a storm triggered it.”

“Or maybe it's a trap” Alex says, picking up the receiver, tossing it between her hands as she stares at the dials. She twists them until the crackle of static fades out, the hum becoming longer, louder, and she winces at the sound. 

“There’s only one way to find out,” Kara says, and Alex takes a deep breath.

 

***

“This is Alex Danvers, is there anybody alive out there?”

Maggie nearly falls off the back of her chair from where she’s leaning on it’s back legs, feet resting crossed at the ankles, on the table upon which sits the outdated radio equipment which, after months of silence, has finally crackled into life. Static fills the room, and she stands, staring, because she doesn’t dare believe her ears. She’s almost forgotten what it’s like to hear another human voice.

“Hello? Anyone? Can anyone read me?”

Shit . This is no joke, she's not hallucinating, the world is too sharp for it to be a dream. She dives forwards, grabbing the receiver, turning the volume up so the static overwhelms the small room. 

“Yeah - yeah, I can, I can hear you.”

There’s a soft scream on the other end of the line, and then muffled, static sounds in the background that sound like movement. She twists some of the dials and the line becomes clearer and she can clearly hear someone coughing in the background, and then the woman’s voice filters through again.

“I didn’t think anyone would answer,” she says. “I didn’t think there was anyone.”

“You and me both,” Maggie says, gripping the receiver like a lifeline, desperate not to let go. There’s a hundred questions running around in her head; who are you, how did you get out, how are you still alive. But the coughing starts again. “Who else is there?”

“My sister, Kara,” the woman called Alex says. 

“Is she okay?”

There’s a pause and for a heart stopping second, Maggie thinks the line has gone dead before she’s even had the chance to say anything meaningful.

“It’s the virus,” Alex says and Maggie’s blood runs cold.

“I’m sorry." The words sound pathetic even to her own ears.

“It’s fine,” Alex says, but the waver in her voice says otherwise. “So who am I talking to?”

“Maggie Sawyer,” Maggie says. Her heart is still pounding furiously in her chest just from the sound of another person's voice. “You must be pretty close by to reach me.”

“And where are you exactly?”

Maggie looks out of the dusty window at the infinitely gray sky she can see through the burnt matchstick trees, out onto stretches of fields of cracked mud and dead grass. 

“Blue Springs, Nebraska, or what’s left of it,” she adds with a humourless laugh. “Any idea where you’re calling from?”

“We’re already in Nebraska?”

Alex’s voice is filled with awe at their accomplishment.

“You sound surprised. Where did you come from?”

“National City.”

Maggie lets out a low whistle. That was definitely something to be proud of. She’s surprised, yet also grateful, that the two women hadn’t run into any cannibals or criminals along the way. Or maybe they just had a talent for survival.

“I’m impressed. How far east are you heading?”

“Trying to get to Boston.”

“Ah, so you’re cure hunters?”

“If that’s what people are calling us,” Alex says.

Maggie’s heard stories about cure hunters, travelling across states to try and reach labs on the East where a cure for the virus that had spread across the country was being made. She’d heard how some groups would stop at nothing to get there, how, slowly, the numbers had dwindled until the majority of survivors were people who were stranded, waiting to see if the next day brought anything new, hopeful. Today had done just that for Maggie.

“That’s quite a journey, Danvers,” Maggie says, contemplating what she’s about to say. It’s going to be a risky move, she knows it, but she isn't going to pass up this chance and she has never been one to back away from a risk. “Don’t suppose you’re in need of a decent place to stay for a night?”

The line is silent again, but Maggie can practically hear Alex thinking, the cogs in her brain ticking over as she considers the offer. 

“What do you want?”

The response takes her aback.

“Nothing! I’m just offering,” Maggie says. “You'll be the first human contact I’ve had in months, and I’ve started to go crazy in my own company.”

Okay, so maybe going crazy wasn’t the best thing to start joking about. She was trying to do the opposite of scaring Alex and her sister, the first people she’s spoken to in what feels like forever, away.

“So you’re not going to just expect us to give you all our food or whatever?”

“I don’t need food or whatever,” she says. “There’s still some good in this world, Danvers. Start believing in it.”

There’s another pause, and whispering she can’t quite make out, the static starting to come back onto the line. It’s a miracle there’s enough power to make one call; one more storm, and she knew that the radio would be impossible to use again.

“You still with me, Danvers?”

“I’m only agreeing for Kara,” she says eventually. “She needs it more than I do.”

“Happy to help,” Maggie says. “Any idea where you are?”

There’s a low muttering on the other end of the line, and Maggie waits, her fingers gripping the edge of the table, hardly daring to believe she is this close to actual human beings.

“Wymore.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, Kara spotted a sign on the road,” Alex says. 

“Well, that makes things easier, you’re the next town over,” Maggie says. “Didn’t realise there was anything left of the place. I guess the fires must have missed it.”

“Lucky for us,” Alex says. “So, what’s the plan?”

“I’ll come and meet you in Wymore as soon as it’s light,” Maggie says, trying not to stare out of the window again now darkness has slowly crept up on her. The fear of the unknown enemy terrified her more than she cared to admit. She’d been alone for too long.

“We’ll be ready,” Alex says, and Maggie can hear the eagerness in her voice, as desperate as she is to meet someone on her side.

“Just so you know, you’ll be safe there for one night,” Maggie says, commenting on the slight apprehension in Alex’s voice that has been there from the moment she spoke. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She’s about to hang up the line when Alex speaks again, her voice stronger this time, protective almost. Maggie can tell she’s had to say the words before, like they’ve been ingrained in Alex for years before this moment. 

“Sawyer, how do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t. See you around, Danvers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think this is already grim and bleak, then don't read The Road. Except you should, because it's the greatest book ever written. If you have read it, come and nerd out to me about it at alexdavnrs on tumblr


	2. fear (of the unknown)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who's ready for some Maggie Sawyer backstory?

The mist had disappeared by the time grey light returns to whatever is left of Wymore. Alex has barely slept, too busy staring at Kara, watching the orange light from the fire cast her face in shadows that devour the hollowness of her face. Her nerves too, about Maggie Sawyer, had kept her stomach reeling, her mind constantly wondering if she’s made the right decision. By this point however, she’s willing to try anything that will help Kara.

They stand on the road outside the derelict town hall, their breath steaming in the cold air. She wraps her arms around Kara as they wait, eventually sitting down on the sidewalk, her free hand permanently on the gun in her pocket.

“Alex.”

She turns to where Kara is staring down the street. A rare smile crosses her face; it’s like something out of one of those trashy action movies she had used to make Kara watch. A figure, cast in silhouette, emerging through the mist, and from what Alex can see, a shotgun slung over one shoulder.

Alex stands, positioning herself in front of Kara, watching as the figure approaches.

“Danvers?”

She lets out a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding. Maggie stands only a couple of feet away, hesitant, her head tilted to one side, regarding the other two with mild curiosity, as if she’s deciding if the image she had conjured in her mind of the two fitted the reality in front of her.

“Sawyer?”

“Nice to put a face to the name,” Maggie says, taking a couple of steps forward, braver now she knows she isn’t just talking to two other random strangers in a ghost town.

“Likewise,” Alex says, the feeling in her gut nothing to do with anxiety when Maggie smiles, causing dimples to appear.

“You must be Kara,” Maggie says and Kara nods. Alex still stands in front of her sister; while she’s sure Maggie poses no threat, Alex isn’t quite willing to drop her guard. But if it came down to it, she was certain she would be able to take down the shorter woman. Given the choice, she'd rather just believe that, for once, the end of the world wasn't quite so depressing.

“Thank you for helping us,” Kara says. "It's nice to know some people you meet can be trusted." 

“Don’t mention it,” Maggie shrugs, then looks back at Alex. “We should go, get somewhere safe. Just in case.”

“There’s no one else here,” Alex says, although as she says it, her nerves start to tingle again. 

“You can’t be sure of that,” Maggie says. “No offence, but it’d just sum up the state of everything if I get killed trying to be nice person and help you.”

Maggie reaches out towards Kara and Alex’s hand twitches, the natural impulse to pull Kara out of harm’s way overtaking her brain, but she manages to stop herself when Maggie takes the rucksack Kara is holding limply in one hand, the base of the bag scuffing against the road, and shoulders it.

“Ready?”

She starts walking before Alex can even agree, and although everything in the rational part of her brain is screaming at her to just turn around and run the other way, she  _ can’t  _ and she won’t because this is for Kara. And she herself cannot help but feel so drawn towards Maggie, whether for the protection or just the sheer miracle of human contact, that she follows her along the broken road.

They walk in relative silence, not for lack of questions that are burning inside Alex, but so they are completely focussed on their surroundings, their ears practically twitching, straining for any sound of movement.

The only sounds are those of Kara coughing, of Maggie’s boots scuffing along the concrete, kicking at stones. She takes the lead, and Alex lets her, relishing the feeling of, for once, not being in control. She lets it happen, accepts it, because if Maggie was going to kill her, she would have done it the moment she had found them. Now the fear has gone, Alex is left with deep-rooted gratitude that will linger long after they inevitably part ways.

“We should be safer now,” Maggie says, breaking the silence as they turn off past the dented and blackened sign that tells them they’re leaving the ghost town of Wymore. She leads them over a broken, rotting fence topped with rusted barbed wire into grey rutted fields with patches of dead grass poking through the cracked mud.

“Where are we going?” Kara whispers besides Alex, a glint of uncertainty and distrust in her eyes. 

It was unusual, for Kara to be so weary; she had always been the one to see the best in people, someone who held hope so close to her heart. It was one of her greatest strengths, beyond superpowers, but like everything Kara had once had, it had been quelled significantly, lost almost, a casualty of destruction and the pain of loss.  Loss was ingrained into Kara; it had been since she was thirteen years old. Now she had lost two home planets, two families, even more friends. She had never let the loss of Krypton consume her, but even for Kara Danvers, there was only so much loss one person, even a superhero, could handle.

And now that loss, the heavy consuming emptiness was seared into Alex as well.

“No idea,” she says in answer to Kara, and the nerves start to settle, hot prickles of anxiety in her stomach.

“Alex…”

“We’ll be fine,” she whispers, watching Maggie’s back cautiously, eyes drawn to the way her shoulders dip from the weight of two packs making her look shorter than she really is. As if she can feel Alex’s eyes on her, she turns back, gesturing to the distant tree line nearly three fields over.

“Not too far now,” she says and Alex catches up with her in a few long strides.

“I thought we were going to Blue Springs?”

“Close enough,” Maggie says. “There isn’t really much left to go to.”

“So you’re taking us to the woods instead?”

“Relax, Danvers, if I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it already,” Maggie says dryly but it does nothing to calm Alex down. She comes to a sudden stop and Kara almost bumps into her. Maggie sighs like she knew this was coming, shrugging one pack off her shoulder and reaching into it.

Alex holds her breath, her hand gripping Kara’s arm, ready, but all Maggie pulls out is a bottle of water.

“Here, it’ll help with the coughing,” she says, handing it to Kara. “Unless you want to check I haven’t poisoned it first?” she adds to Alex, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t expect a stranger to be all okay that you’re taking them into your hideout in the woods,” Alex says, letting go of Kara’s arm, wanting to knock the bottle out of her hands, but something was stopping her from doing so. It took a moment for her to realise what it was; trust. She had spent so long trusting only herself and Kara that realising she could put her faith in someone else was going to take a while to get used to.

“Your choice,” Maggie says. “You can leave any time you want. But something tells me you’re not gonna do that.”

Light dances in Maggie’s eyes as she watches Alex; there’s perhaps even some fear in there that Alex would leave. But they’re warm, kind, full of hope which is something Alex has not felt in a long time.

“Fine,” she says, gesturing for Maggie to lead on. She tries to keep the scowl on her face, but when Kara turns to her, beaming, she thinks the risk might just be worth that smile.

She walks side by side with Maggie, Kara only a pace behind her, hand gripping Alex’s with strength that would have once crushed Alex’s fingers. The mist settles thick and fast as they cross the second field, plastering Alex’s hair to her face, her hands slippery from the condensation.

“Just so you know, this is a big risk for me, too,” Maggie says, hitching the two packs higher onto her shoulders.

“Why’s that?”

“Leaving all my things behind, walking alone all the way to come and meet the two of you,” Maggie says. “Not to mention that you could just be taking advantage of my hospitality and you’re going to kill me and run at the first chance you get.”

“If you’re so worried, why take the risk?” Alex asks. Maggie glances across at her with a soft smile.

“Because I’m choosing to believe there’s some good left in the world,” Maggie says. “I’m choosing to do something good so I  _ know  _ good things  exist. Surviving... surviving isn’t quite enough for me.”

Trust locks itself into Alex’s heart at that exact moment. She may be going into the unknown, putting Kara in danger, but the fear is no longer there. She trusts Maggie. And that is not something she feels lightly.

“You’re very brave,” Kara says beside her. Maggie looks slightly taken aback.

“No, I’m just tired of being afraid,” Maggie says.

In this world, the line between fear and bravery was very thin. It was one Alex continually crossed, jumping from being brave to get her sister somewhere safe, to simply pushing away the fear and doing what she thought was right, impulsively, recklessly. And Maggie was right, it was exhausting being so afraid all the time; of course, she had experienced fear before, but never so constant or great. She was always watching over Kara, watching around them, waiting, waiting, waiting for something or someone to come and kill them, or worse.

Maggie steps a few paces ahead when they near the edge of the woods. The trees are bare, the bark peeling away slowly as they died. The sheer density of the trees makes it nearly impossible to see what could be waiting for them if they walked through.

“It’s not too far in,” Maggie says, sensing the trepidation. “Just stick close.”

Alex glances behind her, scanning the horizon quickly before realising it was doing nothing to settle her nerves. She steps into the tree line, Kara’s hand still in hers, following Maggie as she treads a path through dead leaves and fallen branches. She sticks as close to Maggie as she can, accidentally treading on the back of her boots when Maggie starts to slow down as the trees get denser, the branches hang lower and then finally, after what seems far longer than it probably was, they step out into a small clearing, in the middle of which sits a run down, weather beaten cabin.

There’s definite cheap horror movie vibes coming from it, something that makes the hairs on the back of Alex's neck stand up. Maybe she trusted too soon. She glances at Kara, who’s concentrating intently on the cabin, trying to hear anything. Alex would be surprised if she could, her hearing was nowhere near as strong as it once was.

Maggie turns back when she reaches the door, unlocking the padlock.

“What’s the matter, Danvers? Too  _ Blair Witch  _ for you?”

“I always hated that movie,” Kara mutters beside Alex.

Maggie holds the door open for them both but Alex stops Kara from stepping inside.

“You go first,” Alex says to Maggie and the shorter woman just about stops herself from rolling her eyes. Alex steps over the threshold, keeping Kara behind her, her eyes slowly adjusting to the relative darkness compared to outside. Then there’s a flicker of a flame and the cabin is bathed in a safe orange glow from the lamp Maggie has lighted.

“See? Told you, I’m on your side,” Maggie says, stepping behind them to close the door. “It’s not much, but I guess it’s home.”

“It’s amazing,” Kara says, her hand slipping from Alex’s looking around the small room.

In one corner sits a bed with a worn mattress and a couple of tattered blankets strewn over it. The floorboards creak when she steps forward, taking in the surroundings, staring at the radio system on the table, fingerprints in the dust lining the top. Through the door she can just about make out a toilet and sink, and in the corner a large first aid kit that looks, thankfully, untouched. A pack rivalling the size of Alex and Kara’s, is propped against a wall next to a very sharp, dangerous looking knife. If it came down to it, she knew she wouldn’t have to protect Maggie, too.

“Mind moving your foot, Danvers?”

There’s a light tap on her thigh and she jumps, taking a couple of steps back. Maggie throws her jacket onto the bed and bends down, lifting two loose floorboards, sticking her arm inside all the way to the shoulder before pulling out another bottle of water and two tins with no labels. She stands, slotting the floorboards back into place.

“Here.”

She hands Alex the bottle of water. The weight is unfamiliar in her hand, heavy; she hasn’t held this much water in so long. She feels like she’s holding the rarest substance on earth.

“Where did you get all this stuff?” she asks, sinking down onto the bed next to Kara who takes the tin of food Maggie hands her, wide-eyed.

“Wherever I could get it,” Maggie says. “And whenever it was safe enough to. Spent most of the first nights I was here sneaking around, trying to get it all back before someone saw.”

“We can’t take this,” Kara says, trying to hand the food back to Maggie.

“You need it more than I do,” Maggie says. “I’ve got enough.”

Alex doesn’t need any more convincing. Kara still hesitates, but eventually the basic need to just eat which they had been deprived of properly for so long overtakes her morals. She forces herself to eat slowly; after going so long without proper food, after getting used to starving on the hunt for anything to eat when their own rations ran low, it was a hard task.

She watches Maggie as a distraction, content to keep her questions at bay for now, knowing that Maggie must have a lot of her own, but instead she busies herself cleaning the sawn-off shotgun she had carried all the way to Wymore and back.

“So, how exactly did you find this place?” Alex says after a while. Kara is dozing off on her shoulder, arm linked through Alex’s. Maggie sets the gun down on the table next to the radio.

“It was my father’s,” she says, her voice heavy. “Pretty sure my family were the only people to know about it, so it’s the safest place I could find.”

The use of the past tense unsettles Alex more than she cares to admit. Maggie clears her throat and stands, walking over to the door and rattling the padlock, glancing out of the window as if to make sure that she was right, and they were safe.

“I never thought I’d have to leave Blue Springs because it was too dangerous,” Maggie says. “I guess the apocalypse kinda changes everything.”

Alex silently agrees.

Maggie sinks down on the mattress, kicking off her boots and shuffling backwards so she was leaning against the wooden wall of the cabin, shoulder to shoulder with Alex.

“When you said earlier, that nothing was left of Blue Springs,” Alex says. “Is that why you had to leave?”

She hates to think of what became of National City when she left with Kara in the middle of the night. She knew there had been fires, riots, all in the first couple of weeks before the virus started and they were forced to flee for Kara's protection. Now, she isn’t even sure that she’d be able to recognise the place she had for so long called home.

“Not exactly,” Maggie says, pulling her knees up to her chest, picking at the blanket under them. “Everyone got selfish, and fast. Rioting, stealing, trying to control what was left but just making things worse. Can’t imagine what it would have been like in a city like yours.”

“About the same, just on a larger scale,” Alex says. “I try not to think about it.”

“You and me both,” Maggie says, breathing out a hollow laugh. “Most people thought it was safer to run and be on the road than stay there.”

“I don’t think anyone’s safe anymore,” Alex says. “No matter where they are.”

“Depends who you get stuck with, I guess,” Maggie says. “Bound to catch trouble if you get mixed up in bad stuff, or if you try and stop shit from happening.”

Kara unconsciously moves closer to Alex, her head falling onto her chest. Soft snores fill the cabin and there’s a flicker of a smile from Maggie, watching Kara with the same kind of reverence that Alex did, like she couldn’t believe she was still alive, that she managed to find anyone alive nearby.

“Which side were you on?” Alex asks, though she’s sure she knows the answer.

Maggie fishes into her back pocket and pulls out something which glints in the dim light of the lamps around the cabin. She hands it to Alex who runs her fingers over the grooves in the gold police badge.

“You were a cop?”

“Why do you sound surprised?” Maggie asks with a raise of an eyebrow, taking the badge back from Alex. “Is it the height thing? Because I used to take down guys twice my size.”

“I don’t doubt you,” Alex says. “But I don’t know if it was brave or stupid of you to try and keep the peace.”

“Definitely stupid,” Maggie says, staring down at the badge in her hands and then suddenly putting it back in her pocket like it was causing her pain to look at it any longer, like it was reminding her of something she considered to be her own failure.

“You tried your best,” Alex says. “I don’t think anyone could control people when they realise laws don’t mean anything anymore. At least you didn’t join them.”

“Sometimes I think it would have been easier to do that,” Maggie says, leaning her head back against the wall, staring into nothing. “Easier, but not better. I’d still have run. And in the end, I wasn’t left with much choice because for some reason no one really appreciated me trying to keep everyone else in line.”

There’s tears threatening to spill over behind the bitter laugh that follows. 

“They were going to kill me,” Maggie says. “I had to run.”

She’s speaking as though she’s asking for forgiveness. Like she hasn’t seen anyone since she left her home and all this guilt about leaving, about giving up to save herself, about running because there was no other option, has been eating her alive since the moment she locked herself away in this cabin. Alex isn’t sure she’s the right person to tell her it was okay, after all, she’s only just met Maggie. In this world, she has to trust with an all or nothing approach because time was running out. And she trusted Maggie.

“You didn’t have a choice,” Alex says. “It wasn’t your fault. They’d have hurt you, probably got to your friends, your family.”

She can see the tears burning in Maggie’s eyes and she almost wants to tell her to just forget this conversation ever happened, so they can go back to knowing nothing about each other. It would make it easier when she and Kara had to leave to go on. But she couldn’t leave knowing Maggie was so caught up in her own guilt like this.

“I ran away to protect my family,” Maggie says. “And now I have no idea where they are. I don’t even know if they’re alive.”

Her voice cracks on the last word. Alex reaches out tentatively, and as soon as her fingers brush against the back of Maggie’s hand, Maggie flinches, sucks in a breath, as though she isn’t used to such a gentle touch.

“You know what I think?” Alex says, resting her hand on Maggie’s as soon as she knows she’s comfortable with it. “I bet they’re still out there, looking for you.”

They may be empty words, but it’s all she can think to say. In any case, it brings some of the light back into Maggie’s eyes.

“Choose to believe in the good, right?”

Maggie laughs softly at the use of her own words. Alex thinks they could all use some words of hope right about now. 

“You’re not alone, Maggie,” she says, but there’s something more than that, a deeper meaning that spills out of her because Maggie, selfless, kind, traumatised, guilty Maggie, needs something to hold on to, just as much as her and Kara do.

“You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took a long time to be updated, i suddenly got really busy. i appreciate all your comments and likes so so much, thank you! also these past two chapters have been set-up and dialogue heavy, but it's important to set out the backdrop of all this because it'll be important later on. anyways, there will be more action next chapter... as always, hit me up at alexdavnrs on tumblr if you want to chat!


	3. things we lost in the fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I mention this is gonna be the longest slow burn (no pun intended) I've ever written? No? My bad....

A deafening crash jolts Maggie from her sleep, her eyes snapping open, orange light blinding and disorientating her until the rest of her senses catch up with her brain and she can smell smoke, hear trees outside falling and in the back of her mouth she can taste burning, feel the sweat dripping down her back. And then she is wide awake, pushing away bedsheets, smoke stinging her eyes, the heat oppressive, bearing down on them with a weight that makes her bend over double.

“Alex! Kara!”

She roughly shakes Alex’s shoulders, and then Kara’s and for a heart stopping moment she thinks Alex  _ won’t _ wake but then Alex is sitting up, bleary-eyed but she sees the fear on Maggie’s face. There’s no time for a plan, only for Alex to pull a still-stirring Kara from the bed, and she reaches the door, putting full force behind a kick that smashes the padlock as Maggie scrambles behind her, trying to gather what she can before she knows she has to run. Alex looks back, eyes wide, still waking up, gripped by a panic she doesn't quite understand yet.

“Go! I’m right behind you Alex,  _ go _ !” Maggie yells, propelling Alex out of the door with her urgency as she turns back, grabbing the pack from the edge of the bed, the knife, and the shotgun from under the bed, the metal red hot but she grips it as tight as the strap of the rucksack as she stumbles to the door, not even looking back.

Then she’s running as fast as she can, running for her life, everything heightened tenfold as she pelts through burning forest, catching up with Alex who is half-dragging Kara along, one arm over her head, trying to cover them both from falling branches and white hot ash. B lood pounds in her ears as the fire sweeps through the trees, chasing them, wood cracking as loud as gunshots around her. She watches as Alex stumbles next to her on a charred, fallen log and Maggie catches her wrist with her free hand, adrenaline from God knows where driving them further, out of the woods, out of danger, the three of them spilling from the trees, away from danger, away from the grips of death.

Maggie collapses near the edge of the other side of the field far away from the flames, falling to her knees, throwing up blackened bile from the smoke that had invaded her lungs even just for a few minutes. The pain of it brings tears to her eyes as her body heaves and her throat feels dry and scratched as she coughs, sucking in air.  Her head swims as she turns onto her back, staring up at the grey sky which goes black as her eyes flicker shut, feeling the adrenaline leave her body. She holds her breath and beside her, she hears Alex swearing and Kara coughing worse than she had done yesterday.

Slowly, with enormous effort, she lifts herself up onto her elbows and stares at the fire as it burns terribly bright. Wood cracks and crumbles. Plumes of smoke rise up, darker than the rest of the sky. As the adrenaline fades, Maggie becomes faintly aware of the stinging sensation on her left hand where she had gripped the barrel of the shotgun. She stares down at her hands, one palm red and blistered, the other speckled with ash.

Then a shadow falls over her, blocking out the orange and the red and the yellow and the grey and she glances up, Alex’s face swimming into view, her hand held out. She pulls Maggie to her feet by her right hand, her face blackened by soot, smearing it when she wipes a trickle of blood off her cheek where a branch cut into it her skin.

“ _ Shit _ .”

Now she’s standing, now she is watching the forest burn, now she is able to process what the hell has just happened, it starts to sink in just what she has lost. The radio system she had found Alex and Kara with, the water and food she'd shared with them the day before, the first aid kit she had failed to grab when she was running out of Hell, and most importantly, most heartbreakingly of all, she has just watched the last connection her family burn to the ground. She wants to scream, cry, at the injustice of it all, the injustice of the  _ freaking world _ because six months ago they were happy, she was happy, and now everything is _gone_.

“I’m so sorry.”

Alex's hands rest on her shoulders, the weight comforting, chipping away at the pain of loss she feels. Maybe not everything is gone. She still has Alex, and Kara, she had managed to save them, but then again, they were just strangers, they had known each other not even a day but the way Alex’s hands are resting on her shoulders, the way she is watching her with eyes that somehow reflect the warmth and power of the fire in front of them, makes Maggie realise that time, in this world, doesn’t mean a damn thing. 

She doesn’t have time to build up trust or to overthink. All she has, all they have, is the time that has been left to them, and she knows that time isn’t going to last forever, that eventually, the sand will run out and the hourglass won't be turned over. Times change, and time has changed her. And time didn’t wait for anyone.

“Let’s go.”

Alex’s eyes widen, and she takes a step back as Maggie picks up her pack and throws it over her shoulder. She finds it hard to look at Alex, instead focussing on sliding the knife into her pack, because if she looks at Alex she will see pity reflected back at her and she doesn’t have time for that. 

“Maggie…”

“We can’t stand here all day,” Maggie says, finally looking up when Alex moves back to Kara who is sat on the ground, staring at the flames. The younger woman looks as devastated as Maggie feels, although she can't understand why. Maybe she just had hope that for once, the universe was on their side and her and Alex had finally found somewhere safe to be. But there's more, it can't just be disappointment because Kara looks almost haunted at the sight of the fire. Alex kneels in front of her sister, glancing back at Maggie.

“It’s okay if you need time -”

“I don’t,” she says shortly. “We don’t have that time. There’s no point in standing here, staring, because it won’t help anyone.” Her voice is raised to carry over the sound of splintering wood and crashing trees, but it comes from her anger at the entire situation too. “You don’t have the time to wait.”

Boston is over half the country away. Knowing what she does about the virus, it's a miracle Kara has made it this far, and it would be another thing entirely if she manages to make it to the East Coast. And standing around, the Danvers sisters waiting for her to be okay about watching her world turn to ash, wouldn’t help at all. And she knows Alex knows it.

“Let’s go,” Maggie says again, then points into the distance, parallel to the still-burning forest. “East is that way.”

“You… you’re coming with us?” Kara asks, standing by Alex’s side, shouldering her pack. The tips of Kara's hair are singed from the flames. Her heart drops in her chest, the spike of pain she associates with being left behind, with being alone, erupting in the pit of her stomach. She should have expected this from the start.

“You don't want me to?”

“No, no of course we do,” Kara says, wide eyed and eager, moving forward like she's going to hold Maggie’s hands as if that will strengthen her words. “Right, Alex?”

There's an awful pause and for a second, Maggie thinks Alex is going to say no, that Maggie’s job is done because she helped them and now she will just be a burden. But that's fine, Maggie can deal with it. She's used to being alone.

“Stronger together, right?” Alex says at Kara and the blonde’s eyes fill with tears which Maggie doesn’t pretend to understand. “You sure you want to do this?” she asks.

Maggie shrugs, trying not to show how relieved she really is.

“Got nowhere else to be, Danvers,” she says. “Gonna take more than a fire to scare me away.”

Kara’s smile shines brighter than the fire, than the sun ever did, the woman practically bouncing on the spot, as if Alex has just let them keep a stray puppy. Alex just shakes her head slightly, watching her sister, but there’s a smile there too, hidden under layers and layers of strength and walls she’s put up to guard herself, her sister, from strangers.

She picks up her gun which had fallen to the floor when they’d stopped running, pocketing it again and striding past Maggie, Kara practically skipping to catch up with her sister, glancing back at Maggie. Alex doesn’t stop, but looks back too.

“Keep up, Sawyer!” 

***

Maggie loses track of how long they walk for. Her feet ache, her thighs feel like they’re going numb with the exertion, and it doesn’t help that she last ate… well, she doesn’t know. She can’t remember, but it was too long ago, and her energy is flagging. She’s not used to walking for what feels like days on end because she never had to get used to it. She had her cabin in the woods, and she was surviving. She’s not used to having such a strong sense of purpose, a goal in sight that they have to keep heading towards.

Alex, however, is used to it. She seems to have an endless reserve of energy, powering through, hiking over fields and striding through streets of ghost towns, carrying Kara’s pack when her sister starts to slow down, like she’s been doing this her entire life. Like she was born to save Kara and carry on, no matter what. 

Eventually, long after darkness had fallen, they stop on a ruined highway, just outside a rundown motel. It's not somewhere Maggie recognises, but they can't have managed to get too far in just one day. Maybe if the world was brighter, the place busy with cars and people, she might know it. The once-neon sign hangs down from the post, wires loose. The windows are mostly smashed in, the paint chipped and discoloured, stairways to the top floor rusted from the torrent of rain that had flooded the surrounding area. It looks deserted but there’s a tingling sensation that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and Maggie grips the shotgun tighter as they edge towards the motel.

“You sure about this, Danvers?” she mutters. “Anyone could be here.”

“They’d have seen us by now,” Alex says, but still gripping the handle of her gun in her back pocket. 

“I just survived a fire, I’d like to not die in a seedy, abandoned motel,” Maggie says and Alex exhales a laugh as they reach the door of one of the rooms. 

“There’s no one else here, Maggie,” Kara says, sounding far more confident than Alex. 

Alex opens the door, the hinges creaking, grey light filling the room. Maggie holds her breath as Alex steps inside, positioning herself in front of Kara just enough so she could stop something or someone coming at them. But nothing happens, there's no explosion of noise, no sudden movements. Alex lowers her gun, walking further inside and Maggie and Kara follow.

Alex turns back, closing the door, casting the room into darkness. 

“We’re alone.”

***

It doesn’t surprise Maggie that Alex is the first to fall asleep, the way she had taken the lead all day. She wonders if that’s always the case or if she trusts Maggie enough to not feel the need to stay awake just to make certain that Kara is safe. She has a feeling Alex would never admit to that, but she still appreciates the thought.

Alex must really be dead to the world because she doesn’t stir when Kara starts coughing, the sound almost as painful as it must feel, but Maggie is there, her hand rubbing small circles on Kara’s back, waiting until it passes. 

“Thanks,” Kara says, her voice hoarse, when Maggie passes her a bottle of water from her pack. She knows she should save it, there were only so many she could fit in her pack alongside everything else but Kara needs it far more than she does. 

“Anytime.” She pushes the bottle back into Kara’s hand when she tries to give it back. “Keep it.”

Even in the darkness, she can feel Kara watching her. It’s slightly unnerving, the way it feels like she’s being x-rayed, analysed, but then Kara shuffles back under the moth-eaten blankets, shifting to get comfortable on the world’s most questionable mattress.

Maggie closes her eyes, determined to get some rest despite how on edge she feels, but then Kara takes a breath like she’s about to say something and she turns to look at her.

“Um, Maggie, I… I just want to say I'm sorry,” Kara whispers. “About the fire, and now you have to come with us.”

“I chose to come with you,” Maggie says in equally hushed tones. “You don't have anything to be sorry for. If it hadn't been for you and Alex, I wouldn't have anywhere to go right now.”

She doesn't mention that she wouldn't really have a  _ reason  _ to go anywhere. She’d just be stuck with nowhere to go, alone. 

“I just… I know how it feels to lose a home,” Kara says softly, staring up at the mould-covered ceiling. 

“It wasn’t my home, Kara,” Maggie says, trying to ignore the lump in her throat because even if she denied it, it was the place she had felt safest, it was her connection to a past life, and now it was destroyed. “It was just a place to stay, to try and survive. Blue Springs was my home.”

“You felt safe there,” Kara says. “Sounds like home to me. So I’m still sorry.”

Maggie turns on her side so she’s facing Kara, watching as she scrunches the blanket in her hands, staring up like she’s searching for something.

“I’m sorry you lost your home, too,” Maggie says. “But you still have Alex.”

Kara glances at the sleeping form of her sister, sprawled out next to her. 

“I’d be lost without her.”

Maggie smiles, closing her eyes again.

“Pretty sure she feels the same way about you, too, Kara.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love me some Kara and Maggie brotp!! Thank you so much for your comments and likes, and the kind souls who made my bad week with their awesome messages, I really appreciate you all so much. I know I'm so slow at updating, but I've been really ill and life is hectic, but I'm committed to this fic, and I have a lot more I want to do with it. Enjoy tonight's episode everyone!


	4. no smoke without fire

They must be far out of Nebraska by now. She can’t tell, the surroundings are like cheap film backdrops that are put on a loop, the same scene playing over and over again, fields and ruined houses and collapsed telegraph poles, everything grey and bleak and miserable. They’ve been walking for so long that they must crossed state lines; not that there are any states anymore, there’s no one around, there’s no system to enforce boundaries.

Maggie has eased herself into their lives without hesitation, seamlessly moving from isolation to joining the two of them on their path East. Alex can’t help but be drawn to her, almost in awe of Maggie, because her home had just been destroyed in a fire and yet here she is, walking along beside them, stopping to give Kara a helping hand up a steep, rocky path, retreating back a few paces to get Alex’s sister to just go that little bit further. 

And she helps Alex, too. It’s the smile,  _ God, that smile _ , that for a moment, for one shining glorious moment, makes Alex forget about the world around them and she just takes in the warmth and the brightness that Maggie has brought to their lives. She takes the lead when Alex starts to crack under the thoughts of what if they don’t make it to Boston on time,  _ what if, what if, what if _ but then Maggie is there, leading the way, saying they can’t be that far short of Illinois by now, keeping the hope alive. 

***

On the crest of a hill Kara spots what looks like a barn with a collapsed roof, the whole building seemingly swaying ominously in the light breeze that curls her hair around her neck. There’s a look in her eyes, one that Alex gives into almost immediately, without saying anything, and when Maggie looks between the two, clearly confused, even a bit apprehensive, Alex grabs her hand.

“Come on, we might find something,” she says, ignoring the twitch of Maggie’s fingers and the spike of heat the contact creates; she can’t think like that, she doesn’t have the energy or the time, not when she had to save Kara. She couldn’t be selfish and give in to her emotions anymore, as much as she wanted to. 

So she tries to convince herself it’s an end of the world thing, that she’s only feeling like this because it’s just been her and Kara on the road, alone for so long that of course she’s glad to have someone else with them. Someone who just happens to be so kind and thoughtful and the most beautiful thing she has seen in this world since it ended… but no, she can’t  _ do this _ not right now, perhaps not ever. 

They trudge over muddy fields, their boots soon caked in brown gunge, and it takes her a while to realise that she’s still holding Maggie’s hand until they reach the entrance of the barn and Maggie lets go of her, walking towards the wooden doors.

It’s a small miracle it hasn’t been burnt to the ground yet. Metal tools lie rusted outside, never to be needed again. The door creaks open on rusted hinges, and the fear is immediate, hot and swelling inside the pit of her stomach because there could anything, anyone, inside. But Maggie has her shotgun, she has her pistol and that would be enough. It had to be enough. 

Grey light spills inside, on smashed machinery, rotted hay and dusty floors. Maggie’s holding out an arm, stopping them from going inside, and Alex can’t work out if she’s doing it instinctively to protect them or not. Then, slowly, she lowers her arm and lets Alex take the lead. 

“What’s she hoping to find?” Maggie whispers to Alex as Kara kicks through the hay and peers into empty oil drums that clang and echo around the barn when she prises the lids off them.

“I think she’s just hoping she doesn’t find anything bad,” Alex replies, and Maggie laughs softly beside her. 

“Keeping the faith, right?” Maggie says, watching as Kara turns back to them.

“Maybe there’s something in the hayloft,” she says with such a weak tone of optimism that Alex has the strangest urge to laugh. They watch Kara go on ahead.

“Keeping the faith,” Alex repeats, taking over the fruitless search Kara had taken elsewhere. She barely takes a look in the nearest oil drum when Kara’s voice comes floating back like a soft breeze, hushed and wary, calling her name.

“Alex.”

She glances back at Maggie who already has her gun drawn, her brow furrowed and forehead lined with panic Alex has a feeling she would never admit to. She follows behind Alex, to a small wooden staircase Kara had climbed, which creaks when Alex tentatively rests a foot on the bottom step.

“Alex.”

She climbs one handed, her gun in the other, hesitates as she reaches the top, her vision slightly obscured by hay bales; but she doesn’t need her sight to know what Kara is seeing. The smell is enough. It claws at the back of the throat, attacks her, makes her eyes water, and her hand slips on the ledge, knowing she has to go up there, but not wanting to because she knows exactly what she is going to find. There’s a choked ‘ _ oh God’  _ behind her from Maggie, and she hazards a glance down, one hand covering her mouth and nose as she stares up at Alex, eyes wide.

Alex hauls her thin frame over the top, pushing herself to her feet. The sight in front of her almost makes her retch. She can hear her heart pounding in her chest so violently that she’s sure when Kara turns around, anguish in her eyes, she can hear it too. 

Kara’s hand finds hers immediately, gripping it so tightly that, if she had her powers, it would probably crush Alex’s bones. She wants to look away from the rotting corpses in front of them, but she just can’t, staring in horrified fascination that these people were once living, breathing, working, loving and hoping and they could never have imagined that one day, this would be their final resting place. 

And it hurts, not because she knew these people, but because they remind her of who she has lost. This was death at it’s most brutal, not discriminating, but, in the end, taking everyone away.

“Do you think it was the virus?: Maggie asks in a hushed tone, and Alex jumps, for a moment forgetting she’s standing at her shoulder. 

“Maybe,” Alex says, though they have no way of knowing. She hopes it was; virus would have been quicker than anything else. Kara has only survived this long because Alex got her away from the city so quickly, the remaining reserves of her powers healing as much as they could before the sun went out. But it still hadn’t been enough.

“Let’s go, Kara,” she says, finally looking away. “Kara, come on.” She tugs on Kara’s sleeve, harder until her sister turns to look at her, not betraying any emotion except in her eyes which blaze with anger and grief, and Alex knows she’s thinking of the same people she is. 

Kara leads the way back down the steps, hurrying out of the door of the barn. Alex and Maggie lag behind her, Alex intent on giving her sister some space for a moment before they get as far away from the hilltop as possible. Just before they reach the door, Maggie’s fingers brush against her arm, making her stop.

“Don’t you think we should… I dunno, bury them or something?” 

The words surprise Alex and bring a lump to her throat. She wants to say yes, because Maggie’s eyes are heavy with despair and the spark in them has faded slightly. But she can’t.

“We don’t have time,” Alex says, striding out of the doors, looking around for Kara who is stood in the shadow of a dead oak tree. 

“Okay, then burn the place down or something!” Maggie calls after her, catching up in a few long strides. “We can’t just leave them like that, Alex.”

Alex picks up the pack Kara has dropped by her feet as she stands overlooking the valley they were walking through, overseeing all that she could as the mist gathered in the distance. 

“They’re  _ dead _ , Maggie, we can’t do anything,” Alex says, not turning around. “If we light a fire, people will know we’re here, they’ll come running and we won’t be able to get away in time.”

“But -”

“But nothing!” Alex snaps. “We don’t have time for this. I have to get to Boston, with Kara, I don’t have time to mourn every dead person we see.”

She shoulders Kara’s pack alongside her own, taking Kara’s hand and walking with her back down the path made by their footprints, passing Maggie who stands there, pack held loosely in her hand, mouth slightly parted in a look of confusion and desperation. 

It’s not that Alex doesn’t get it, she does. It’s a way to make peace with it. But she made her peace with death a long time ago, and she doesn’t intend to hang around while Maggie does the same because she doesn’t have the time. Kara doesn’t have the time. And if she has to choose… 

She stops at the crest of the hill, turning back to Maggie.

“Look, if you want to stay and do whatever it is you need to to make peace with it, then feel free,” she says, not unkindly. She would understand. “But I have to keep moving. And I can’t promise you’ll be able to find us again so… it’s up to you. But I’m asking you, as… as a friend, to keep moving too.”

Maggie glances back at the barn and Alex’s heart is thrumming in her chest because for a moment she thinks Maggie might make the choice she is dreading her to make; if she leaves, if she stays behind, Alex isn’t quite sure what she’ll do because the thought of Maggie alone again in this world makes her feel sick. She’s grown used to her by now, she’s had to, and she is very unwilling to let her go. 

“Maggie, please,” Kara says, taking a step back up the crest of the hill. “I know it’s hard, it’s… it’s horrible but we can’t help them. I was like you, I always wanted to stop and help, but sometimes you have to realise you can’t. But you can help us, you can help Alex,” she continues, glancing back at her sister. “We can help each other.”

Maggie’s shoulders slump, accepting defeat. She doesn’t look back again as she picks up her pack, nor does she look at Alex or Kara, but just makes her way down the trail they had left behind on their ascent, leading the way back onto the road.

***

They make camp only a few miles East of the barn. If she squints, Alex can just about make out it’s silhouette, alone on the hilltop, like a monument to the dead. It’s soon swallowed by the darkness as they push through trees to a small clearing where the smoke from their fire can’t be seen by anyone, friend or foe, walking along the road.

Kara is soon asleep, her head resting on Alex’s thigh, but Alex and Maggie stay awake, keeping watch. It’s tense, there’s no denying it. Maggie has barely said a word since they walked away from the barn, but Alex can’t tell if she’s angry or just sad. Maybe it’s a bit of both. But she wants them, needs them to be okay, she can’t bear to sit and just watch the fire if she knows Maggie is upset.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Alex says. 

She isn’t sure why she’s apologising when she made her opinion on the matter very clear, and in the end, she had made the right choice, for Kara’s sake. But the despair in Maggie’s expression when she had finally walked away from the barn was burned into the front of her mind and she couldn’t shake it, she couldn’t stand knowing this was eating away at Maggie. She’s not sorry for her choice, she’s sorry she had to make one.

“It’s fine,” Maggie shrugs, stacking the firewood into a neat pile between them. “You were right, there was nothing we could do.”

“I don’t want you think that I don’t get why you wanted to,” Alex says, because Maggie definitely is not fine. “I do, it’s just… I have a job to protect Kara. And I wish I had the time to do the right thing, like how you wanted to, but I just… she’s running out of time.” 

Her voice breaks, and she doesn’t want this to be about her and how she’s feeling because Maggie is the one who’s sitting there staring into the fire and not talking, but the way Maggie turns and looks at her, all soft eyes and sympathy… she knows it’s okay to feel. 

“I get it, Alex,” Maggie says. “I shouldn’t have asked, it was selfish and -”

“No, no it wasn’t selfish,” Alex interrupts.

“Well, neither were you,” Maggie says and just like that the tension lifts and Alex lets out a breath because now she knows Maggie isn’t angry at her and it’s a more comforting feeling that she could imagine.

There’s something else she wants to say, she isn’t sure what, but the words are on the tip of her tongue but then Kara shifts in her sleep, murmuring something Alex can’t quite pick up and the moment is gone. 

“You can tell you two are sisters,” Maggie says, as Kara’s soft snores fill the clearing, poking the fire with the stick she was keeping by her feet.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Maggie nods. “It’s just small things, like how your nose crinkles when you’re thinking. And the other day, when you were trying to figure out if we were still heading East, you were standing there with your hands on your hips. Kara does it, too.”

“Huh.”

She’s never really noticed that before, but the more she thinks about it, the more she realises Maggie is right. 

“You sound surprised.”

“Well, I mean, she’s my adoptive sister.”

“I figured,” Maggie says, tossing another piece of wood onto the fire, watching as the sparks rise and disappear into the night. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Come on, Danvers, are we really going to play that game?” Maggie says, amused, with a raise of her eyebrow. “I watched the news, I’m not an idiot. Not even Supergirl could stop the end of the world, right?”

She shouldn’t be surprised; as she said, Maggie wasn’t an idiot. She had always made sure to protect Kara’s secret identity from the moment she revealed herself as Supergirl, it was hard to just let go of that instinct. But there were barely any people around to see her, and even less would care about the superhero. As much as this world needed a hero, it wouldn’t be getting one anytime soon. 

“I didn’t want to say anything at the start,” Maggie says, pulling Alex out of her thoughts. “It didn’t seem worth it if you two had left, I didn’t want to scare you away.”

Alex shakes her head.

“You wouldn’t have,” she says softly, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind Kara’s ear, the sounds of the fire cracking filling the silence until she speaks again. “She’s not Supergirl anymore. She’s my sister, she always was, she was family first before anything else. The world saw Supergirl and I saw my sister. She’s the real hero. She’s… she’s  _ my  _ hero.”

She doesn’t know how long they sit in silence for, but the fire starts to die down again before Maggie nudges her leg with her own, making Alex finally look away from Kara. 

“You know she copies you, right?” Maggie says, staring into the fire. “It’s probably subconscious, but I’ve noticed it,” she says, glancing at Alex out the corner of her eye. “The whole hands on your hips thing, the superhero pose, she gets that from you.”

“How do you know that?”

Maggie’s smile is almost one of embarrassment and she determinedly looks away from Alex, back at the fire, poking it a few more times before she answers.

“Because Kara isn’t the only hero in the Danvers family.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this seems really slow paced, but I promise it picks up more, I'm just not used to publishing what I write in chapter format. Thank you for all the support, it means a lot. Enjoy tonight's episode!


	5. if tomorrow never comes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay in this chapter, life got really busy. Bit more action this time.

Chicago lies in ruins. 

It looks like something out of a movie, one of those epic dystopian films that she had watched and thought ‘Thank God we’ll never have to deal with that’. Broken skyscrapers stand like the remains of a once-great empire. From the crumbling highway, they see buildings slowly falling into a murky expanse of water. Little orange lights dance across the city, remnants of devastating fires.

Kara’s hand finds Alex’s and she knows her sister is thinking the exact same thing; this must be what National City looks like, too. They hadn’t stayed long enough to find out, but seeing Chicago turned to ruin only made the reality all the more painful. 

“Do you think anyone got out?” Kara asks.

“Must have done,” Alex says. “We got out, didn’t we?”

“Maybe someone’s still there.”

“Why would they stay?” Maggie says and Kara opens her mouth but then closes it again. 

After a long pause she says, “I don’t know.”

Alex turns back, her hand slipping from Kara’s, catching Maggie’s eye, knowing that she’s thinking exactly the same; they can’t linger here, even on the outskirts of a city. It was too dangerous. She braces herself for what’s coming, and Kara doesn’t let her down. 

“Where are you going?”

“We need to keep heading East,” Alex says, walking further away with Maggie by her side. “There’s no point staying here, Kara.”

“We can’t just leave!” Kara says, her voice echoing around them and Maggie stops, turns to look back but Alex continues walking. She can’t keep having the same battle over and over again, first with Maggie and now with Kara. One thing she loved most about Kara was her hope, her innate ability to see the good in people, but in this world, it was naive to expect that everyone could be their own hero. 

“We have to, Kara,” Maggie says, jumping to Alex’s defence.

“There might be food, or people who can help,” Kara says, desperately trying to hold on to something. Alex stops, only a few paces in front of the other two, Maggie standing between them like a spectator, braced for what might be about to happen.

“There’s nothing there, Kara,” Alex says, turning back slowly, looking at cracked concrete to the side of Kara rather than directly at her. She might just give in if she looks at her sister.

“You don’t know that!”

Alex closes her eyes. In the distance there’s the sound of another building collapsing into the lake. The very highway they stand on seems to creak in the wind. 

“You’re right, I don’t know that,” Alex says finally. “But I know it’s dangerous and it’s not worth it.”

Kara takes a few steps forward, now level with Maggie who is watching the scene wearily, glancing between them, silent. 

“You say this every time, Alex!” Kara says. “For once, can’t you just take the chance? You always used to.”

“That was different! I was doing my job, I took risks knowing I could protect you if it came down to it, but now I can’t promise that I can save you if something goes wrong,” she says fiercely. “I won’t do it, Kara, I won’t put you in that kind of danger!”

“But -”

“No, Kara!” Both Kara and Maggie flinch at the volume of her voice. “We go there, and maybe if we’re really lucky, we find food. Food which we could find going East. And then what if we find people? Chances are they’re not going to be like Maggie, okay? They won’t be good people, they’re monsters, and they will kill us, Kara, and I’m not letting that happen!”

Kara’s shoulders slump, defeated. She’s silent, contemplating, imagining the same things Alex has in her mind. Then, after a minute, she strides past Alex, her arms wrapped around her thin frame and walking back the way they came and finally Alex feels like she can breathe again. She stands there for a second, silent, until Maggie rests a hand on her shoulder. 

“You did the right thing,” she mutters so her voice doesn’t carry to where Kara is walking ahead. “She’s just scared, Alex.”

“I’m scared,” Alex says, turning to look at Maggie, but the knot of fear in her heart loosens when she looks into deep brown eyes. “I’m so scared. She’s not the one who has to worry about everything.”

Maggie hitches her pack up her shoulder, wincing at the weight and the way the straps cut into her bare shoulders. There’s something in her eyes, an emotion Alex can’t quite place because it’s not one she’s ever seen in Maggie before. She looks almost angry. 

“You’re not the only one worrying, Danvers.”

Maggie walks past her without another word, jogging to catch up with Kara. Alex sighs, watching as Maggie takes the pack from Kara, slinging it over her other shoulder. She glances back at Chicago for the last time before turning and following after the others.

 

She can deal with Kara’s anger if it means keeping them safe. She can tune it out, ignore the stubborn silence from her sister, because she knows in her heart that she made the right choice. And she knows Kara knows it too. With Maggie, however, it’s harder. She expects it to pass, she’s sure Maggie isn't one for staying angry for long, but the way her words are short, the tension in her voice, makes Alex feel just a little bit more alone. 

They don’t stop to sleep for what must be days. They’re used it to by now, but Kara soon starts to falter, takes longer rests but Alex is determined not to stop until they are far away from the city and back on the road leading East. 

“Alex, c’mon, we need to stop.” Maggie sounds as exhausted as Alex feels. It’s the first time in days her words haven’t gone through her like shards of ice.

“We just need to get a bit further,” she says, words she’s been repeating like a mantra. The further they are from the cities, the safer they will be.

“Al… please.”

Even in the short time she has known her, Alex doesn’t think she’s ever heard Maggie sound so small. She turns around, her boots scuffing against the unmarked road, kicking up small clumps of tarmac. She knows Maggie isn’t asking for her as she looks past at Kara who is almost swaying where she stands, watching Alex carefully, and that is all it takes for Alex’s resolve to crumble.

“Fine, let’s get off the road,” she says, leading the way up the bank and into the small patch of trees, heading as deep as they can inside until they stop by the edge of a small creek. 

 

***

 

A few days later they reach a tunnel cut into the side of the hills with trees lining either side of the road, brown leaves coating the floor. Alex would give anything to see autumn trees again, colours of gold, red, purple, a sign that the cycle of life was continuing and not heading towards its inevitable end.

Burnt out shells of cars linger on the road like echoes, abandoned by their owners in their haste to escape whatever had caused the panic to leave so suddenly. Her stomach flips over when she spots festering sticky pools of dark red underneath one of the cars. Whoever was here, is most definitely dead. She wipes the grime from the windows, peering through the glass but there’s nothing. Standing, she searches for Kara and finds her steadying herself on the hood of one of the cars.

“Maybe we should stop here,” Maggie suggests, glancing from Kara to Alex.

She’s too tired to disagree, even though she knows it's probably safer to sleep off the road; she just hopes no one finds a reason to come searching through the tunnel. They huddle inside on the backseat of the only car with all four doors still intact, the locks rusted away, Kara in the middle, protected on both sides.

Kara rests her head on her shoulder and closes her eyes. Alex’s hand tightens on the gun inside her pocket as she stares through the window past Maggie, to the opening of the tunnel. Whether from hunger or fear, her stomach churns but she can’t force herself to keep her eyes open any longer.

 

She’s woken by the low growling sound coming from her stomach. Alex shifts slightly in her seat, gently pressing two fingers to the side of Kara’s neck, hearing the steady  _ thud thud thud  _ of a heartbeat.

The growling in her stomach continues. It gets louder. It turns into a rumble. The ground trembles beneath them and then the other two are awake, their confusion turning to panic. Alex forces the door of the car open, grabbing Kara’s hand and pulling her along, Maggie leading the way, packs left behind, stumbling into the trees, down one of the banks in the forest, Kara’s hand still clenched in hers as they all drop onto their stomachs, breathing hard.

Maggie glances across, pressing a finger to her lips as Alex draws the gun out from the inside of her jacket. There’s only two bullets left, and she can’t afford to miss. She pulls the safety back.

As they watch, a truck grinds to a halt amongst the wreckage. Seven people are sat on the back of it, some of them bound together with rope, the others standing guard with rifles and maces. Two of the men get out of the truck and wrench open the hood, steam pouring out of it, temporarily clouding Alex’s view.

“Alex,” Kara whispers and she puts a hand over her sister’s mouth as leaves crunch underfoot. One of the men is getting closer and Alex’s finger hovers on the trigger, blood pounding in her ears.

Maggie glances across at her, trying to figure out the plan forming in Alex’s hand, trying to work out if they’re on the same page. Alex adjusts her grip on the gun in her hand and Maggie seems to understand, nodding silently.

The man hasn’t spotted them, not yet, but he only has to look down to his left. She knows she has to act first, take the chance to surprise that’s being offered to her, her instincts kicking in.

Alex stands on shaking knees and the rustling of the leaves catches his attention. His mouth opens but then he sees the gun in her hand and he stops. Maggie and Kara are standing either side of her, hardly daring to breath, glancing at the truck which is shielded by the trees, just far enough out of sight. She doesn’t have much time before the others come looking for their friend.

“Don’t move,” she says, slightly proud that her voice doesn’t shake.

“You gonna shoot me?” the man says in a drawl, raising his hands slightly, not looking at the gun being pointed at him but at Kara, eyes as grey as the sky above them, cold and unforgiving, empty.

“If you look back or call out for help I will,” Alex says, shifting slightly to relax her body incase she has to move fast.

“Come back to the truck. We have food.”

“Who are those people?” Alex asks. “Where are you taking them?”

“They’re not people,” he says with a sneer that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She doesn’t need to ask what he means.

“You’re a bounty hunter,” Maggie says, fire in her voice, stepping closer to Kara and at the look on Kara’s face, continues, “him and his friends hunt aliens that weren’t killed by the virus and hand them over to whoever can pay.”

If Alex didn’t want to shoot him to escape, she wants to because just the sight of him is making her blood boil and the way he’s looking at Kara has set her every nerve on edge. She’s sure he knows, but she doesn’t know how, but the way he’s looking at her like she’s his next catch is enough to make Alex redouble her grip on the gun. 

“You gotta do what you have to to survive,” he says, lowering his hands slightly and Maggie’s laugh is almost a snarl.

“Humans first, right?”

He doesn’t answer, but his sneering grin is all the confirmation they need. He turns his head again to look back.

“I said don’t look!” Alex says, waving the gun.

“You’re not gonna shoot me. They’ll hear the shot.”

“Maybe,” Alex says. “But you won’t. This bullet will go through your skull and into your brain before you hear it. Things with names like frontal lobe, the colliculus and temporal gyrus will be mush so you won’t be able to hear a thing.”

“You a doctor?” the man asks.

“I’m not anything,” Alex says through gritted teeth.

“We’ve got a man hurt. Come take a look at him, we’ll feed you when we get paid,” he says.

“We don’t want anything to do with you,” Maggie says fiercely. “Alex, come on, just let him go, we can’t stay here.”

Two bullets versus seven armed men are not odds Alex wants to bet on and she knows that if they could, Maggie would be more than willing to try. But not with Kara, she can’t risk that. Yet she stands still, watching as his gaze lingers on Kara and she can practically hear Maggie’s heartbeat she’s standing so close.

“Look at her again and I’ll shoot you,” Alex growls and the man laughs. “You think I won’t kill you? You’re wrong.”

“You know what I think?” he seethes. “I think you're a coward. And you’ve never killed anyone in your life.”

If only he knew. Not that she’s proud of it, she never would be, but she was a soldier and sometimes, it was either kill or be killed, especially if it meant keeping Kara safe. And she knows exactly what will happen if they get taken by this man, and after all this time, after all their fighting and will to keep moving, she isn’t about to let this be the end. Her finger rests on the trigger. One move and he is dead. One more look at Kara, and he’s a dead man. 

Then the whole world shakes as an earsplitting bang shudders through the forests, coming from the direction of the road and for a moment, Alex thinks she’s pulled the trigger because the man falls sideways, or rather lunges and in the split second Alex has turned towards the truck and back, he has grabbed Kara around the neck with a long knife at her throat. 

Maggie darts forward, halfway between Alex and the man holding Kara, but Alex’s hand reaches out to stop her before she can dive forward and try to grab Kara.

“Let her go!”

She’s beyond keeping quiet now, her heart is beating so loudly in her chest there’s no point in even trying to conceal her voice, too focussed on Kara who is gripping the man’s arm, struggling helplessly. The men back at the truck are too busy shouting at each other to even bother looking towards them.

“You think I don’t know who she is?” the man says, eyes gleaming. “You think I’m that stupid? Supergirl is gonna keep me alive long after her friends are gone.”

She has no choice. She will not lose Kara. She couldn’t save everyone and she hadn’t, but right now, she could save Kara. And Alex was getting through all of this with her sister, or she wasn’t going to at all.

“I’m giving you one more chance,” she says, voice trembling either through anger or fear. “Let her go or I’ll shoot.”

“Alex -”

She holds her hand up to silence Kara’s protest, staring into her sister’s eyes. The shot will no doubt alert the other men, men with guns and knives and maces that will chase them through the forest as soon as she fires her weapon and there is no certainty they’ll get out of it alive. But she will not let Kara be the hero, not this time.

One wrong move and she will hit Kara. But if she doesn’t shoot Kara is dead, there is no question. She’s no longer bulletproof, she’s as fragile as Maggie or Alex, only human, and one shot is all that it would take. Alex can’t throw away her shot. It’s now or never, kill or be killed, trust her instincts, her training, stop the shaking of her hand as she lines up the shot, her mind running and tripping over in its haste to calculate distance, calculate the real probability of missing the man and hitting her sister. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Alex pulls the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't take full credit for the final scene - it's an AU of The Road for a reason, but I've tried to make it more my own. Thank you for all your support, it really means a lot and I'll try to get the next chapter up quicker than this one!


	6. wild world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found my motivation again, so this chapter is shorter but I'll be updating more regularly hopefully!

They both fall before she even hears the shot.

Blood sprays brown leaves with crimson mist and before her finger can even leave the trigger, she’s by Kara’s side, Maggie skidding to her knees, seeing nothing but red, red, red until Kara’s eyes open, her hands shaking as she pulls Kara to her feet, not looking at the body of the man with the blood pooling around his head, the sneer still on his face, no time to be shocked that Alex really had pulled the trigger.

Of course she did, she doesn’t understand how he thought he would walk out of the woods alive, but she has no time to think about this because the mist clears, the ringing in her ears is punctuated with the sounds of shouting and pounding footsteps. Alex’s sweaty hand finds Kara’s heaving her to her feet, what sounds like a thousand footsteps echoing around them. Maggie picks up the gun from where Alex dropped it, raising it in the direction of the sounds, but Alex knows there’s only one bullet left so she grabs Maggie’s arm too.

The run faster than they have since the fire in the woods, using every last drop of energy and adrenaline to keep their feet stumbling through piles of leaves, over tree roots until they’re so deep in the woods Alex has no idea which way the road is let alone if they’re running East, the shouts of the men echoing around the empty woods on all side, hunting them like a pack of wolves. At this point, she would just take getting out of this alive even if they can’t find the road again.

Her legs fold underneath her body as they collapse down by a small dark pond, hidden slightly by fallen logs, no idea if they’re far enough off the path of the men who seem to be closing in from all sides, their voices rushing through the bare trees.

Alex clamps a hand over her mouth, her heavy breathing surely enough to give them away, drawing their hunters to them as easily as if she was standing still. She pulls Kara close to her, bracing herself and then her hand finds Maggie’s, gripping it as tight as she can, if she was stronger, enough to crush bones and a lump rises in her throat, her chest tightens, because _she’s let Maggie down, she’s as good as killed her_. She’d gone with them to be safe, and now they were in more danger than they could ever imagine.

But the more she listens, the more it sounds like the voices are fading, passing into whispers, haunting ghosts in the shadows around them, and she holds her breath, concentrating as hard as she can, hardly daring to believe it as the men’s voices fade into whispers and then the world falls into silence, lifeless. Lifeless, except for the three people who did not expect to be alive.

“Alex.”

Maggie shakes her shoulder, forcing her eyes open to see the shorter woman peering over the top of the fallen logs, eyes darting around, searching the shadows, her hand holding Alex’s gun resting on the wood.

“Alex, they’re gone.”

She lifts her head up, hardly daring to breathe, but all that she can see is grey and brown forest, devoid of life and the adrenaline and terror rushes out of her in a choked, relieved sob as she holds Kara close, gripping her coat as hard as Kara is gripping hers.

“We’re safe.”

 

They stay hidden until darkness falls. Maggie’s hand is still clutched in Alex’s, but Kara has shifted, sitting up with her back against the logs, arms hugging her knees close to her chest. Specks of blood coat the left side of her face.

A million questions are running through Alex’s mind; why had the men given up their chase so quickly? Did they think the three of them were better armed than they really were? Did they not think it was worth it anymore? After all, they didn’t know what their fallen friend had. She tries not to think, it should be enough that they’re gone but just the thought of what they were doing makes Alex feel sick.

“Do you think we should go back?” Maggie whispers into the darkness. “All our stuff’s there. They’ll have gone by now.”

She sounds as unsure as Alex feels but they don’t really have another choice. They need to keep following the road but something about going through that tunnel is enough to send shivers down her spine. Kara doesn’t even look up when Alex goes to stand; she’s in shock, and after coming so close to actually dying, after watching her sister fire a gun aimed so close to her, it’s not unexpected. It’s a reminder of her mortality.

“Kara, come on, we need to get back,” Alex says, kneeling by her sister. Maggie’s hand slips out of hers as she stands over them, watching the trees just in case. “Let’s go, Kara.”

She grabs Kara’s hand and pulls her to her feet, then rests a hand on her shoulder, wiping away the tear on her cheek.

“Hey, look at me,” she whispers. “I’d do anything to protect you. Anything. You’re safe now, okay?”

“They’re hunting aliens and we just walked away,” Kara says softly. “I know there was nothing we could do, not anymore but… we could have done. In the past, we could have saved them.”

“That’s what we have to hold on to,” Alex says. She’s spent too long beating herself up over people she couldn’t save when the harsh, brutal reality is that she can no longer save everyone because that was just how the world was now. “If we could, we would have saved them and we have to remember who we saved before all this. Let’s get back.”

None of them say a word as they crunch slowly over leaves, dragging themselves through the paths made from their frantic escape back to the tunnel, avoiding the bank where the dead body of the bounty hunter lay. The truck along with the men and their captives, are long gone, leaving behind the acrid scent of burnt metal.

Maggie wrenches open the driver’s side door of the car they had slept in and her shoulders visibly sag in relief when she pulls out their three packs still intact; the men clearly hadn’t lingered long enough to properly search through the rusted cars. Alex pulls the blanket they had covered themselves in out from the backseat, wrapping it around Kara, before looking back at the tunnel.

“Ready?” she asks Maggie who shoulders her pack again, brushing strands of hair from her face.

“Ready.”

 

She keeps expecting to hear the sound of the truck and the bounty hunters as they pass through the tunnel and along the road that stretches on as far as she can see. It seems impossible that they have got away from danger so easily, almost too good to be true. After what feels like miles they’re forced to stop through sheer exhaustion; when Alex looks back, she can still see the tunnel. Running for their lives has taken a far greater toll on their exhausted bodies than she first realised. Alex leads the way off the road and back into the trees, following the sound of running water, stopping where an old, rusted industrial pipe pokes out of the side of the hill, water trickling out of it into a small, clear pond.

She doesn’t settle until Kara has washed the blood off her face and the fire is going, sinking down onto the ground so her head is resting against her pack, her sister asleep at her side. At least a dozen times she lifts her head so quickly that the world spins, fearing she’s heard the sound of an engine or voices. Each time Maggie glances over at her, brow furrowed, the light from the fire dancing in her eyes until Alex looks away and lies back down.

The next time she does it, Maggie finally breaks the silence that has settled over the group since they exited the tunnel.

“They’re long gone, Danvers,” she says softly, not looking up, stretching out her legs, the heels of her boots scraping up dirt.

Alex gives up on sleep. Even though she knows they’re gone, she can’t shut her mind off and neither can Maggie; she's not just staying awake to keep watch. Alex sits up, crossing her legs and moving closer to the fire, holding her hands as near to the flames as she can. There's something pressing on her mind, a question that has been on the tip of her tongue since their stand-off with the man in the woods.

“How did you know they were bounty hunters?” Alex asks, her voice barely carrying over the cracking of the new log Maggie throws onto the fire, sparks rising into the sky. She glances across at Maggie and only then realises she’s holding something. The flames reflect off the gold of the police badge in Maggie’s hand, her fingers delicately tracing the grooves around the edge.

“Because a group of them tried to recruit me in Blue Springs,” Maggie says bluntly, avoiding Alex’s eyes. She lets out a long breath, tossing the badge in her hands unconsciously, lost in the past. “Told me that it was the only way to survive, to trade in aliens for food.”

Her voice contains more venom than Alex ever thought one person could have in their body and things start to fall into place in Alex's head, memories of the brief conversation they had had in the night in the cabin.

“That’s who you ran from, isn't it?” she asks and Maggie confirms her deduction with a small nod.

“Everyone turned so fast, they gave in so easily,” Maggie whispers into the flames. “A small group of us tried to stop them, but we were outnumbered, so we ran because we were so scared that one day we’d be forced to give up the fight.”

Alex can only imagine how terrifying it must have been to suddenly be surrounded by people whose morals were so skewed, to battle constantly against what was so obviously wrong in a world turned upside down that even the most obvious decisions were being questioned.

“It shouldn’t be a hard choice,” Maggie says. “But the more I thought about it, the less it surprised me.”

It doesn't surprise Alex. Angers her, yes. But shocks her? She's had to deal with many anti-alien groups and ideologies before now to be surprised at the human race’s selfishness and superiority complex, especially in the wake of Cadmus.

“I… I wasn’t entirely truthful before,” Maggie says suddenly after a long, loud silence. “When I told you about my family.”

And there it is. The reason Maggie’s voice sounds so heavy, why she’s hunched up next to the fire like she’s trying to make herself as small as possible. There’s only one possible cause for the way Maggie is controlling her voice like she’s trying not to cry.

“My mother didn’t really want to go,” she says, and at the softness of her voice, Alex shifts closer so most of the heat she feels comes from Maggie and not the fire they're letting die in front of them. “But… my father didn’t leave her with much choice. He said he was doing it to protect our family, and it shouldn’t have surprised me but I thought that maybe, if it came down to it, he would make the right choice.”

The sounds of running water and crackling fire fade out as Maggie talks, her voice so full of anguish that it makes Alex’s heart splinter because how could the world get to such a cruel state that people so kind and selfless were being hurt so deeply by the ones they loved?

“I refused to go with them,” Maggie says, and Alex catches the slight pride in her words. “I couldn’t just change everything I believed in, I could never be that person but other people would use my family to try and stop me from fighting. But he left me behind, he didn’t even fight for me and…” She pauses, her jaw clenched, holding back all the emotion she hasn’t let herself feel in a long time. “That’s why I stayed in the cabin. Because it reminded me of all the times my father wasn’t the man he was when he left. And now that’s gone and I have….”

Her voice breaks on the unspoken word. Alex can see the way the flames dance in her eyes glazed over by tears and she extracts her arm where it’s pressed between them and wraps it around Maggie’s shoulders, feeling her tense up and then relax almost instantly into Alex’s side.

She tries not to think about how natural and right it feels to be so close to Maggie. She tries not to indulge in the moment, she tries not to be selfish about it, because Maggie is so close to breaking, everything she has repressed since the end of the world has been put into startling realisation and Alex has no right to feel what she’s feeling with her arm wrapped around Maggie, the other woman holding herself as close as she can to Alex.

But she feels it anyway. She closes her eyes and lets it consume her as intensely as wildfire because for once, she’s reminded that she’s allowed to feel, too.

“You have us,” Alex whispers into Maggie’s hair, her lips brushing the top of her head. “We’re not leaving you behind. _I’m_ not leaving you behind.”

The tension rushes out of Maggie in a choked sob and Alex holds her closer, determined to stare into the fire instead of looking to her right because she might just, for once, give in. But she watches the flames rise into the night until her eyes start to water, now certain of the thing she had known the moment she had met Maggie; Kara is no longer the only person she would be willing to risk it all for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Name a more iconic duo than me and my love for Maggie Sawyer, I'll wait (I really love her). Thank you for all your support and comments, it really means so much! We're getting into the more intense stuff now, after all that set up.


	7. you're all i have

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This kind of got away from me a bit... Enjoy!

Something has shifted by the time the light chases away the darkness over the woods and the road and they wake, bleary eyed, starving, exhausted. Of course, nothing has really changed. The world is still ending, still turning for no reason, they’re still creeping across broken road, past torn down houses and burnt out cars, tangled power lines and fields of cracked mud and dead grass, past rusting signs that act as markers on the road East.

But something’s different. Things have changed between them, they’ve moved from strangers to friends to… well, Alex isn’t sure. But it’s not what it was before, not after Maggie broke down in her arms after spilling her broken past. They don’t mention it, they don’t discuss it directly, but when they stop for a short while, Alex says, “I’m glad you told me.”

Maggie looks up at her, galaxies in her eyes. “I couldn’t hold it inside anymore,” she mutters, turning the gun over in her hands.

“I don’t want there to be any secrets between us,” Alex says. If they’re going to make it through this, they can’t hold onto their secrets forever. Alex’s own secrets don’t need to be told, unimportant and consigned to the past, but if there was something Maggie had to know, she would tell her. Because there could be a time when she could no longer protect Kara, and Maggie needed to know everything she did. 

“Me neither,” Maggie says with a small smile that holds no light, and for second Alex is sure she sees something cross Maggie’s eyes, something guarded, but it’s so brief that she’s sure she imagined it.

 

***

She counts ten nights since she had told Alex the full truth about her escape from Blue Springs. There’s no way she can count the miles, there’s no landmarks to give any indication of where they are. They don’t even know if they’re going in the right direction.

Eleven days after, they step hesitantly onto an overpass. Maggie makes the mistake of looking over the edge, the valley below stretching into darkness making her head spin. A hand on her arm pulls her back, though she’s in no danger of falling over, and she turns to see Kara watching her, pulling slightly on her sleeve to get her to step back. 

The overpass creaks terribly in the wind and Maggie idly wonders if it would be enough to make the road collapse. They continue to walk in silence and somehow she ends up taking the lead, Alex dropping back to walk by Kara’s side. After their near escape with the bounty hunters, Maggie can hardly blame Alex for sticking as close to her sister as possible. 

Rain flecks at her face, a fine mist settling over the landscape and after a while she turns back and stops until Alex and Kara catch up with her. There’s no word for how exhausted the Danvers sisters look; they’ve gone days without rest, without food and although they’re used to it, although Alex would never admit it out loud, they needed to find food soon or else there would be no point continuing to try and get to Boston.

“We should find somewhere to stop,” she says, and Alex nods her agreement. 

In the distance they can hear the felling of trees, leaving behind a haunting echo. As they round the corner of the highway a dark grey mass comes into view, shrouded in the mist. Maggie squints through the mist and can just about make out what looks like a truck, the back overturned. It seems to take an age to reach, their perception of distance faulty.

Immediately Alex is more alert than she has been in days. She draws the gun out from her parka pocket and Maggie matches her, edging closer to the abandoned vehicle. She reaches the steps first and holds her hand out to stop Alex; if someone is in there, if they get a lucky shot off, then Kara needs her sister more than she needs Maggie. 

She hauls herself up onto the steps. The lock is rusted, unused, stiff as she tries to force it open, her other hand still gripping the shotgun as tight as she can. Something snaps and the door opens and for a heart stopping moment, Maggie thinks there’s someone on the other side but there’s nothing and all her panic rushes out of her in a humourless laugh. She tosses the gun onto the furthest seat, turning back to give Kara a hand up, followed by Alex who closes the door behind her, pushing her pack into the foothold.

Alex throws one of the blankets over them, their only means of keeping warm but at least they were out of the rain. The truck is dangerously close to the edge over the overpass and Maggie has to look anywhere but through the windshield or else her head would start spinning again. Instead, she distracts herself from what feels like their impending doom by rifling through the glove box, which unsurprisingly yields nothing but empty foil wrappers and sheets of paper. 

The radio too has long since died, unlike the one she found Alex with. Or rather, Alex found her. She wonders briefly if satellites still orbit, stranded in space, if they would be the last reminder that humans ever existed once they were all buried beneath the earth. She glances across to where Alex is staring out of the window, stuffing her hands under the blanket to keep them warm. Kara shifts slightly, already asleep, her head falling onto Maggie’s shoulder and at the movement, Alex turns her head, eyes trailing up from Kara to meet Maggie’s gaze.

There’s a long pause, or maybe it’s only seconds but it feels like minutes to Maggie getting lost in soft brown eyes that are studying her so intently it makes her feel naked. Like Alex can read her as if she were an open book. It scares her, unnerves her. But what really freaks her out is that she would be more than willing for Alex to know everything about her, if she gave in.

“She trusts you,” Alex says, pulling Maggie out of her thoughts and back into the truck. She glances down at the soft weight of Kara’s head on her shoulder. 

She just nods dumbly because that feeling, one of trust, is so overwhelming now Alex is saying it that she has a thousand words on the tip of her tongue but none of them even come close to expressing how she feels that in the middle of apocalypse she’s found people who trust her with their lives.

“We should get some rest,” Alex says, sparing Maggie the embarrassment of saying something she might regret. “We’ll move out again when the storm passes over.”

 

The first thing she notices when she wakes is that her arm is numb where it's been pressed between her body and the door of the truck. The second thing she notices is that Kara is no longer sandwiched between her and Alex. The panic registers, immediate and consuming, her heart pounding. Alex is dead to the world on the other side, face pressed against the window and Maggie stares for as long as she dares before slipping out of the driver’s side and jumping down onto the highway below.

She’s soaked to the skin before she can take two steps forward. How Kara managed to get out without her noticing is beyond her, and it only serves to add guilt to the panic because if she somehow let Kara slip away, get taken, she knows Alex would never forgive her. 

Maggie draws the gun level with her shoulders, ready to strike. She's sure she would have heard someone take Kara, there's no way she could have just slept through it, but the more she thinks about it as she edges around the truck, the more worried she becomes that she was so exhausted and starved that her body didn't have the energy to wake in extreme danger.

And then, between the rumblings of thunder overhead and the pattering of rain on the metal of the overturned back of the truck, she hears the sound of raw, painful coughs echoing around the overpass.

“Kara?”

Her voice barely carries over the other noise, and gets no reply as she continues to edge around the side of the truck, grip still tight on the gun. She leans against the side of the truck and takes a deep breath before turning sharply and relief rushes out of her in a breath.

A crack of lightning illuminates the inside of the metal container and Maggie lowers her gun at the sight of Kara huddled in the corner behind some smashed wooden crates. The younger Danvers sister looks up at Maggie as she steps out of the rain, opens her mouth to say something but all the comes out are rib-aching coughs. In a second Maggie is crouching in front of Kara, shotgun tossed to the side as she steadies Kara’s shoulders, murmuring soothing words that echo around the container until Kara’s body relaxes.

“Okay?” Maggie asks softly, although she knows it isn’t. And when Kara pulls her hand away from her mouth and Maggie sees the crimson staining pale skin, everything is definitely far from okay. The way Kara looks at her hand, then at Maggie, breaks her heart a little. She knows Kara’s scared, but more than that, it’s like she’s embarrassed, ashamed that she is no longer the hero she once was and now Alex was risking it all just to get Kara to safety. 

She takes Kara’s other hand, pulling her to her feet walking to the edge of the container so the rain can wash away the blood on Kara’s outstretched hand.

“I gotta say, you scared me a bit,” Maggie says, watching at the water runs off Kara’s wrist. 

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Maggie says, curling a hand on Kara’s shoulder as she pulls her hand back inside, wiping it on her coat. “Why did you leave?”

“I didn’t want to wake Alex,” Kara says softly. “She’d only get worried.”

“Then you should have woken me,” Maggie says, standing by Kara’s side; even if what Alex had said was true, she wanted Kara to know it was okay to trust her. “I’d hate to think what might have happened if you’d… you just shouldn’t be alone, okay?”

Kara turns to her, deliberate uncertainty in her eyes; from what Maggie knows, she’s sure Kara was once ready to trust anyone if they proved themselves once before. Now however, that trust comes slowly and even if Alex believed it, Maggie wasn't about to take her words for granted until she knew Kara trusted her.

“I didn’t want to worry you either,” she says and Maggie is taken aback. She’s still not used to people worrying about her, it’s never the first thing that crosses her mind. 

“You wouldn’t have done,” she says, although it’s not totally true. “And if it makes you feel better, I’d rather you woke me than Alex.”

Whatever Kara is about to say is drowned out by the shouting of her sister through the rain.

“Kara! Maggie!”

Before Maggie can even call back to Alex that Kara’s okay, before they can take more than a step out of the shelter of the container, Alex has come skidding to a halt in front of them.

“Oh, thank God,” she breathes, tucking the gun back into the waistband of her jeans, closing the distance between them in two strides, her boots splashing water up her jeans.

Maggie can’t tell if Alex is more angry or relieved at the sight of her sister; her expression says anger but in her eyes, Maggie can still see the softness there as she pulls Kara closer to her by her arm.

“Don’t do that!” Alex says, glaring at the both of them. “Don’t ever just leave like that, okay? Do you know how terrifying that was?”

Kara tries to stammer out an apology but Alex keeps going, words rushing out in relief.

“I thought you’d been taken! You’ve got to be more careful, I can’t protect you all the time, just please don’t wander off like that,” she says fiercely to Kara. “What were you doing out here?”

Before Kara can try and come up with an excuse to spare Alex the real reason, Maggie jumps in.

“Kara thought she heard something,” Maggie says easily. Alex looks up at her like it’s the first time she’s properly seeing her standing there. “I noticed she was gone when I woke up and when I found her, she said she thought she heard someone nearby.”

She should know better than to expect Alex to accept the lie so readily. She stares for a moment, trying to read Maggie’s expression but she doesn’t say anything; she knows all too well how easy it is to be paranoid on the road.

“You should have woken me,” Alex says, and the softness has disappeared from her eyes. “You shouldn’t have left me behind like that.”

“Alex, it’s okay, she was just worried about me,” Kara says, jumping to Maggie’s defence and while she appreciates the gesture she’s not about to take the accusation in Alex’s voice lying down.

“I’m sorry, I just panicked, okay?” Maggie says, holding her hands up. “I saw Kara was gone and my first thought was to try and find her, it was just instinct.”

“I’m her  _ sister _ ,” Alex says as if Kara isn’t standing right there between them. “You should have woken me.”

“Don’t you trust me to help?” Maggie asks because that’s how it feels right now, that Alex doesn’t trust her to take care of Kara, that if, God forbid, something happened and Alex was gone, she wouldn’t have Alex’s total faith that she could keep Kara safe.

“Of course I do -”

“Then act like it!” 

She doesn’t mean for her words to come out as a yell, but they carry over the sound of the pounding rain easily. After the other night, she thought that things had changed between them; she had trusted Alex with such a dark part of her past, there had been a shift, something had pulled them closer together and she thought that… well, it doesn’t matter what she thought because apparently she was wrong.

“Maggie -”

“I get it, Danvers, you want to protect Kara with everything you’ve got,” Maggie says, drawing herself up to her full height. “But what’s it going to take for you to realise that you don’t have to do this all by yourself?”

She blinks away the rain dripping into her eyes, matching Alex’s stare, determined not to look away until Alex backs down, until for once, Alex tears down one of the walls she’s built up just to let Maggie in.

“You’re right, I should have woken you,” Maggie says, keeping her voice level. “But my first thought was that Kara was missing and I had to try and help her.”

“And what if there had been someone here? What then? What if there was more than one person, what if it had been a whole gang, then what would you have done, Maggie?” Alex says, her fears driving her words, all the what ifs and what could have beens sending her into a frenzy of questions that only serve to make Maggie more determined to get her point across.

“Then you have to have faith in me that I would try to protect your sister if it’s the last thing I ever do,” Maggie says and whatever Alex is about to say is silenced. She had gained Kara's trust; now Alex had to believe in her as well. “If I’d had the time, if I’d taken a moment to pause, I’d have woken you. We’d have had half a chance if there was someone here, but you can’t criticise me for being reckless when I know damn well you’d do the same thing.”

“Because she’s my sister -”

“And she’s as good as mine now!” Maggie shouts, the words unexpected even to her.

She has half a mind to take them back but the way Alex is looking at her, the way her shoulders slump, her mouth half open is enough to make her continue. 

“My family left me behind. They didn’t care about me enough to fight for me, they let me go. And then you found me and everything that I thought I knew about the apocalypse changed, because I realised there’s some good in this world, there are still heroes. You fought for me, you both did. So don’t you dare tell me Kara isn’t my sister because the way I see it, you’re family. You’re my family, and you’re all I’ve got left.”

She’s not sure if the water trickling down her face is from her sopping wet hair or tears. She doesn’t really care. She’s silenced any retort from Alex. She’s made herself so startlingly clear that even Alex, stoic as she usually seems, has been stunned into silence by the weight of Maggie’s words. 

Kara looks torn between hugging Maggie and staying put by Alex’s side. She can practically see the gears working in Alex’s mind to process what she’s just said and to try and come up with an adequate reply but Maggie finds the silence is enough. She knows Alex has heard her, it’s in her eyes.

She clears her throat, brushing her hair out of her eyes and bends down to pick up the discarded shotgun, then turns to walk past the stunned sisters.

“We should get out of this rain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's going to be more action very soon, but I'm a sucker for deep emotional scenes. Thank you for the wonderful comments on the last chapter, you don't know what they mean to me!


	8. back when we had nothing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to keep you guys waiting any longer so this is probably just unedited mess... it's going somewhere though, I promise! (Please don't be too harsh on me I'm a stressed, gay mess)

The clocks stopped at 7:51am on March 14th, 2016. There was a long, blinding light and then a low hum that shook the world long after it had passed. Then the fires started, the earthquakes, the tsunamis and the world just _ended_. The phones cut out, there was no way of telling what had caused the world to turn upside down and they would never know. Hospitals were overwhelmed, their efforts futile. Order turned to a chaos not even all the governments of the world could control and people turned into animals, hungry for a grip on a past life, an atavistic desire for survival that flung the world into ruin right in front of their very eyes.

The virus came a month later. Unconfirmed reports of mass deaths led to a cut off of water supplies, then aid was reduced, reduced until it stopped altogether. It took those who were weakest first, human and alien, and then it just swept through the country like a plague, destroyed livestock, and no one who was spared could figure out why they had been called upon to survive in a world ravaged by disease, violence and chaos.

In a matter of months, what remained of the human race was left behind to fight for a world no longer worth fighting for. The chosen few, all those other lives gone, only remaining in memory for as long as everyone else stayed alive.

Alex keeps their memories alive. She thinks about them every night, her friends, her family, people who she had been too late to save. So she doesn’t trust easily. She doesn’t let herself care, because if she starts to care, and she loses it all again… She doesn’t think she can survive that. But then her world changed again and she started to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, some people were worth the risk.

 

***

“I do trust you.”

“Okay.”

“Maggie, come on -”

“It’s fine, Danvers.”

Alex sighs, leaning back against the cave wall they’ve stopped in until the rain passes and they can continue on. The flames dance over the wet walls, shadows casting Maggie’s face into sharp relief. Kara’s asleep with her head in her lap, her breathing shallow and every few minutes she catches Maggie looking at her, as though checking she’s not imagining the rise and fall of Alex’s sister’s chest. Alex wishes she wouldn’t; it does nothing to quell the doubt that has risen inside her that if Kara wasn’t here, Maggie wouldn’t be either.

“I’m sorry,” she says and for the first time since they had left the truck on the highway, Maggie meets her eyes.

“You know how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that?” she says, but there’s no anger in her voice. It comes closer to disappointment and it makes Alex’s stomach churn with guilt. “I’m not taking back what I said,” Maggie adds.

“I don’t expect you to,” Alex says quickly, shifting to relieve some of the ache in her shoulders. “What I didn’t expect was for you to say it.”

“I could tell,” Maggie says, a hint of amusement in her voice and Alex has to mask her features to hide her smile. “But it’s true.”

“I know,” Alex says softly. “I just don’t want you to feel like you have to… I just don’t want you to get hurt, not for me, not if you feel you like you’ve got to because we found you.”

“It’s not about repaying you or whatever,” Maggie says, clearly annoyed because there’s something Alex is missing, she just doesn’t know what. “Anyone who ever met you can tell Kara is the most important person in your life. So what matters most is that you get her somewhere safe, that you save her life and now you don’t have to do that alone. I want to help protect Kara because she should be surrounded by hope and people she can trust, and I want to help for _you_ because…”

Maggie looks away from her, back into the fire, seemingly holding her breath.

“You’ve been carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders by yourself for too long,” Maggie finishes so quietly that Alex almost misses it over the cracking of a log.

For a long time the only sound is the rain echoing around the cave, the steady pattering on the ground outside, with the occasional crackling from the fire Alex keeps poking with a stick to keep it alight.

“I know what it looks like when someone has lost everything,” Maggie says. “If you lost Kara… you said it yourself, we’re stronger together.”

She doesn’t ask how Maggie knows. She just believes her.

“I’m not used to this,” Alex says quietly. “You’re right, I’ve lost a lot of friends… family. So I’m not used to someone caring, and I don’t like caring because I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll lose them. And… I really don’t want to lose you.”

“Good job I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon then, isn’t it?” Maggie says and Alex laughs softly. She jumps when Maggie’s hand closes around her own, squeezing it lightly. “I mean it, Alex.”

Alex’s heart is beating somewhere around her navel so fiercely that she’s surprised the sound doesn’t resonate around them. She's going to allow herself to care, but not this much, not at this level because… well, it's the end of the world and Alex Danvers is not an idiot. They don't have time. Alex is sure that, if she wasn't just making all this up, even if they had forever, it wouldn't be enough.

“The rain’s stopped,” Maggie says and Alex is pulled back into reality with a sinking feeling, masking the disappointment. “We should get moving, I saw a house up on the hill, maybe we’ll find something there.”

Neither of them move. Their hands stay locked together. The fire dies out and so does the spark when Maggie moves her hand and picks up her pack, standing, ready to move forward.

 

***

They squelch through a muddy clearing until they reach the road again. Alex stands there and turns her head both ways until she sees the house Maggie had mentioned. She can't help but remember what they found at the barn, but Maggie is determined to find something and she trusts her. They walk either side of Kara, eventually turning off the road and up the hill, out of breath before they're even halfway.

“I wish I could fly us up,” Kara grumbles and Alex laughs, squeezing her shoulders with one arm.

“I'd rather take the hike,” Maggie says pointedly and doesn't miss Alex’s eyebrow raise.

“Not a fan of heights, Sawyer?” she asks, amused.

“Let's just say I wasn't a very frequent flyer,” Maggie says, suppressing a small shudder.

Eventually they reach the crest of the hill, and they stop, staring ahead at the house. It's in surprisingly good condition (for the apocalypse) but it clearly hasn't been lived in for months. Ivy crawls over the walls near the door, paint flaking and rusting hinges that creak horribly when Alex nudges the door open with her foot.

Light spills into the hallway through the numerous windows, dust clouds erupting around their feet as they step through into the kitchen. Rays of light speckled with dust come through the tiny holes in the roof.

Alex clutches at the stitch in her side as they open cupboards and drawers, searching for something, anything.

After a few minutes fruitless searching, they trail up the splintered wooden steps, creak along the floorboards of the landing, peering into bedrooms with rotted sheets.

They come upon themselves in the mirror of the bathroom and Alex raises her gun at the strangers in the reflection.

“It's us, Alex,” Maggie whispers. “It's us.”

Alex’s wrists are locked, still levelling the gun at her mirror image. She steps forward, can see the other two watching her intently, warily, as she wipes away some of the dust with her hand and as her reflection becomes clearer, the more unrecognisable it is.

Her hair is far past her shoulders, curling and frayed at the ends. She knew she felt exhausted, but seeing the way her eyes were ringed with deep shadows and an almost unearthly hollowness was something entirely different. Whoever she was before this, at least in body, is gone.

She has to look away. Instead she twists the taps on the sink and is even more startled by the result than at her reflection. The sound of running water makes Maggie and Kara’s reflections jump too.

“There must be a water tank on the roof,” Maggie says as Alex runs her fingers through the water. “Think it's safe to drink?”

Alex shuts the taps off.

“We should keep looking,” Alex says; she doesn't want to risk anything at this point.

She just hopes they get lucky; she’s counting on it, they all are. She watches in the mirror as Kara turns away and hears her go back down the stairs to resume their search of the kitchen. As she goes to follow, Maggie’s hand on her shoulder makes her pause at the door, having waiting until Kara was out of earshot.

“How much longer do we have?” she asks, and Alex’s heart sinks into her stomach. She’s sure Maggie knows the answer and part of her doesn’t even want to consider the option that they were so close to running out of time.

“Days,” Alex says anyway and if Maggie’s terrified, she doesn’t show it and covers up her emotions so quickly that Alex doesn’t notice. “We’ll find something, we just have to keep looking.”

They are far more than just days from Boston.

Maggie’s hand drops from her shoulder and she tucks her hands into her pockets, staring at the mirror. Alex can’t even look at her, staring past Maggie at the peeling wallpaper; she’s let Maggie down. She had offered her company, safety, a reason to just keep pushing forward and now all of it could just be for nothing. She brushes past Maggie’s shoulders, quickly making her way back downstairs before anything more can be said.

As soon as she steps foot in the kitchen, all other thoughts flee her mind. Kara is nowhere to be seen. Just as it had done the night they had stayed in the trailer, panic claws at her, she rushes from room to room until she’s out of the door, wind whipping her hair and faintly she can hear Maggie behind her calling Kara’s name.

Then her sister is there, waving her over and whatever exhaustion Alex felt was pushed aside from adrenaline. She slips slightly on grassless, muddy field until Kara meets her halfway between the house and where she was standing calling at them.

“What did I say about wandering off?” Alex hisses, gripping Kara’s shoulders, but Kara pays her no attention and instead pulls on Alex’s arms, looking past her at Maggie, her eyes brighter than Alex has seen them in weeks, maybe even months.

She drags Alex further away from the house, past what appears to be the broken remains of a shed, some gas canisters, all the evidence that somebody had been here before them until she skidded to a halt in front of a dirty, soaked mattress.

Maggie glances at Alex, her eyebrow raised.

“What’s going on Kara?” Alex asks slowly, watching her sister bouncing on her heels. “We’re not carrying around a mattress with us if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Kara rolls her eyes in almost perfect imitation of Alex.

“No, not the mattress,” she says impatiently and with her foot pushes it aside to reveal what looks like a manhole cover with a valve wheel handle. “There has to be something in there, right Alex?”

She looks so hopeful that for a second Alex believes her. She’d believe that it led to the kingdom of Narnia if Kara looked at her with bright eyes and wide smile. There could be everything or nothing underneath their feet and she was in no position to just walk away for fear of what might be lurking below the surface.

She kneels down in the mud, ignoring the seeping wetness on her knees and grips the wheel lock with both hands, putting all her strength behind it until it start to turn with an ear-splitting scream as the rusted lock comes undone with a snap.

“Stay back,” she says to Kara who immediately goes to stand behind Maggie who is watching carefully over Alex’s shoulder as she lifts the cover up, her arms protesting at the effort it takes. She peers over the edge into never-ending darkness. Fumbling in her pockets, she pulls out the lighter she had salvaged long ago and lights it, waving it in front of her; she can just about see what looks like a concrete floor at the bottom of the ladder.

“Do you want me to go first?” Maggie asks but Alex says nothing, just turns around and steps onto the ladder, staring up at the other two.

“I’ll come back,” Alex says, yet Kara’s excited expression has already turned to one of fear and it’s hardly different to the way Maggie is watching her. She pulls the gun out from her pocket, gripping it in one hand and the rung of the ladder in the other as she looks over her shoulder.

Her heart is thundering in her chest, the fear of the unknown sending blood rushing to her head as she makes her way down the ladder, gripping the gun for dear life. The metal of the ladder makes her hand go numb with cold but before she can worry that her grip might slip, her foot brushes against solid ground.

She can only hear her own breathing. No shouts, no gunshots, no ambush. Just her, standing at the foot of the ladder, looking up to where she can just make out Maggie and Kara watching her. She isn’t quite calm enough to pocket her gun, but turns around, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness as she brings out the lighter again.

“ _Shit_.”

She barely hears Maggie’s call of her name, it doesn’t quite register, not when her mind is overwhelmed with what is in front of her. She doesn’t want to look away, but forces herself to turn her head upwards and call up at Maggie and her sister.

“You two are gonna want to see this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this has taken forever but it's been a stressful few weeks and I had complete writer's block for so long before I managed to get this out. Thank you for all your wonderful comments (and concerns about the lack of food... don't worry, I haven't forgotten) they really make my day.


	9. what a difference a day makes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I'm more sorry for how long it took me to write this or for the quality/content of this chapter...

“Is everything okay?”

Kara glances across at Maggie who is staring down at the dark form of Alex illuminated by the lighter. The flame dies but they can still just about make out her standing at the foot of the ladder.

“You need to come down here,” Alex calls up, voice more urgent this time.

She doesn’t sound panicked or scared but they pause for a moment, hesitating. Then Maggie stands, glancing around them to make sure that the person left behind wouldn’t be in any danger.

“You go first,” she says to Kara, gesturing at the ladder. She holds out her hand as Kara steps onto the ladder, watches as she gets further away until her voice calls back up.

“Maggie! Maggie, get down here!” Kara calls up, sounding more excited than Alex yet still as urgent.

She hops down from the last two steps of the ladder in her eagerness to see what Alex has found and when she turns around, the lighter lit again in Alex’s hand, her jaw nearly hits the floor in abject shock. For a moment she thinks she’s hallucinating. That she’s been hit by some kind of drug that makes her believe that in front of her eyes is a fully equipped, state of the art, filled to the roof with supplies, doomsday shelter. 

And then Alex starts laughing. Like she hadn’t believed it either until she saw the reactions of the other two, the pure joy on Kara’s face and the disbelief on Maggie’s. It’s infectious, works its way to Maggie until all three of them are leaning against each other, nearly doubled over from the rib-aching relief and luck. 

“Holy shit,” Maggie says. Alex just looks at her and her smile makes Maggie’s heart soar; she never thought she would see Alex smile like that. “This is real, right?”

Kara takes the first steps forward, fumbling on the wall and then some kind of generator flares into life and the room is bathed in a warm orange glow. Now they can really see the gold mine they had stumbled upon. 

The light gleams off cans and tins lining the walls, reflects in water bottles on the bottom shelves, bounces off the metal frames of the bunk beds against the far wall. On one side there’s a space where a door should be leading to what looks like a toilet and a medicine cabinet. This is what Alex makes a beeline for; Kara goes for the food. Maggie stands there, slack-jawed, still waiting to wake up because their luck cannot be  _ this good _ .

“This is…”

“Crazy? Yeah, it’s crazy,” Alex says, emerging from the side room, holding a first aid kit which she places on the table bolted to the floor, opening it. She holds small bottles of medicine up to the light, squinting at the writing. 

Maggie finally finds her feet, joining the others at the table now covered with boxes and tins of food which Kara has taken from the shelves.

“Do you think it’s okay we’re taking this stuff?” Kara asks. “What if someone’s coming back for it?”

“No one’s coming back, Kara,” Alex says with a sad smile. 

“I think whoever was here would want us to survive,” Maggie says and when Alex looks at her she just shrugs. “We found this just when we needed it. You’re telling me that’s just luck?”

“Laws of probability,” Alex says. “Eventually something good had to happen.”

“Nerd.”

Alex rolls her eyes and leans over the table to swipe the tin of food from Maggie’s hand. 

“Takes one to know one, Sawyer.”

 

***

What must have been hours later, Alex is the last one left awake. She had told Kara to take it easy, to not rush and eat so much in such a short space of time but of course her sister hadn’t listened and was now fast asleep on the bottom bunk where she had been lying complaining of stomach cramps.

After going for so long without food, their bodies weren’t used to anything but starvation; even Kara’s alien metabolism couldn’t handle the sudden resurgence of food into her system. Her and Maggie had exercised some amount of self control but, in true Kara fashion, her sister had wolfed down enough food to feed a small army.

Kara rolls onto her back in her sleep, mumbling something quietly, her brow furrowed. Alex debates between staying where she was and going to make sure Kara didn’t slip into a nightmare but then there’s a soft creaking of the top bunk and Maggie’s voice filters through the shelter and stirs Alex from her thoughts. 

“Why are you still awake?” she asks, voice heavy with sleep. The soft glow of the orange safety lights bounces off Maggie’s hair, casting her face into sharp relief before she jumps down silently from the top bunk. 

“Well, you two took up all the space,” Alex says, trying to pass it off as a joke which, not unexpectedly, Maggie doesn’t buy. She just raises her eyebrows and slides into the seat opposite Alex at the table. 

“And you wanted someone to keep watch just in case, right?”

Alex doesn’t answer but it’s enough; Maggie leans forward, resting her arms on the table.

“You should rest.”

“It’s fine, I’m not tired.”

She knows Maggie knows she’s lying, but the detective doesn’t push it. She fixes Alex with a look before reaching over and taking the packet of Cheetos Kara had got halfway through eating.

“What’s that?” she asks, nodding towards what is in Alex’s hand.

Alex starts, her fingers gripping the edges of the photograph tighter, forgetting she was holding it when Kara had attracted her attention. She would pretend it was nothing, but in truth, it was all she had left of the people she had loved. She hesitates, not willing to let it part from her person for the first time since she had taken it from the frame she had kept it in in her apartment in National City.

Eventually, she holds the photograph out across the table but Maggie waits until Alex says “take it” before she does, her fingers brushing against Alex’s. 

Alex watches her intently, focussing on the way Maggie’s eyes widen slightly in shock and then the soft smile that makes dimples pop, how her shoulders sink as she studies the photograph. 

“Your hair’s short,” Maggie says; it’s not the comment Alex expected by any means but then again, Maggie never knew her before the whole world went to shit. She runs her fingers absent-mindedly through the ends of her hair.

“And Kara…”

Maggie glances over at Kara, watching her with such a soft, almost careful expression that makes Alex’s heart jump in her chest. She knows exactly what Maggie means; Kara, in her Supergirl gear, with a smile that outshone the sun, happy, healthy.

She turns her attention back to the photograph and Alex can’t sit there any longer. She pushes the chair back with a scrape against the concrete floor, turning to the shelves behind her and pushing aside cartons and plastic bottles of water.

“Who are the others?” Maggie asks; the question has been on the tip of her tongue since she first saw the picture but Alex knew she hadn’t want to ask for fear of her reaction. 

Alex doesn’t answer, not right away; her attention has been drawn by the bottle of whiskey stacked at the back of the shelf and while she knows it isn’t a good idea, the conversation she’s about to have with Maggie isn’t one she can do sober.

She sets the bottle on the table and unscrews the top, pouring a generous measure into the cup she’d been drinking from earlier before offering it to Maggie. Alex drains half her drink in one gulp and sits back down, resting her chin on her hand, watching as Maggie swirls the drink in her cup, still staring at the photograph.

“Winn and James,” Alex says softly, gesturing to the left of the photograph with her finger where they were standing, James’ arm around Winn’s shoulder. “J’onn,” she says, pointing to the other side, the final name coming out in a rush before her throat closes up. “And Lucy.”

She reaches back over for the bottle and Maggie doesn't stop her, noticing the break in her voice and all the grief Alex is holding on to seeps into Maggie’s skin; she doesn't know these people, she never would, but they had been important to Alex. They still were. These were friends Alex had loved. Friends Alex had lost.

“Did they…” She pauses, watching Alex carefully. “Did they make it?”

She doesn't want to push Alex, she knows more that most how hard it is to talk about the loss of people she cares about. So she waits, sips her drink, relishes the return of the familiar burn and finally Alex speaks.

“Honestly, I have no idea,” she says. “When it all started most of us stuck together and then gradually, when Kara blew her powers, it became harder to stay in the city. Winn and J’onn were with us at the start but then we got separated one night and… I don't know where they are now.”

Alex’s shoulders are tense, her jaw locked, staring into her cup.

“James was in Metropolis, we lost touch with him when the phones stopped working,” Alex continues with no prompting from Maggie. “And Lucy… she was out of town, somewhere in Washington I'm guessing but we never really knew.”

Alex’s tone is heavy with defeat, someone who is struggling to hold on to the last shreds of hope. But it's there, in her eyes, Maggie can see it. Alex Danvers is not easily defeated, and nor is she an optimist. But in times like these, she can't help but hope that somewhere out there, her family is still fighting. Maggie knows because, despite what they did, she hopes her family is fighting, too.

“It's stupid, right?” Alex says with a hollow laugh, wincing as she knocks back her drink. “I mean, the chances are…”

“Not everyone is gone,” Maggie says, her fingers twitching where they rest on the table by Alex’s closed fist. “We’re not the last ones standing.”

“They're strong,” Alex says trying to muster up some conviction in her tone. “If anyone else has survived, it'll be them.”

Whether it's the whiskey or the situation, static sparks run up her arm and into her chest when Maggie touches her. Her clenched fist instantly relaxes at the feeling of Maggie’s thumb tracing small, comforting circles on the top of her hand.

“You're allowed to hope, Alex,” Maggie says, her voice so soft Alex almost misses it. Without even thinking, she links their fingers together and the warmth is definitely not just a result of the alcohol in her system. “Believe in the good.”

She hands the photograph back to Alex who takes it and tucks it back inside her coat pocket. A tense, yet expected, silence falls between them; either from the whiskey or exhaustion, Maggie’s vision blurs around the edges and she can't stand the silence any longer. She can't stand the destroyed look on Alex’s face.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her old police badge and puts it on the table between them.

“I've shown you mine, now you show me yours,” she says, and Alex laughs, rolling her eyes. “Oh come on, that wasn't a picture of just some standard office job, Danvers.”

Alex considers her for a moment, brown eyes twinkling in the soft light of the shelter. Maggie only blinks when the soft  _ thud  _ of an ID wallet lands on the table next to her badge. She nods for Maggie to take it.

“Department of Extranormal Operations,” Maggie reads from the wallet, eyes wide. “Impressive, Agent Danvers, but I thought you were supposed to be some kind of secret organisation?”

“I don’t think that really matters anymore,” Alex shrugs. “But you’re right, not just your standard office job.”

“So you were standing between the rest of us and an alien invasion?” Maggie says. 

“Pretty much,” Alex shrugs, a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth, handing the bottle back over to Maggie when she reaches for it. “You’re welcome.”

“Oh please, like evil aliens were ever going to target the middle of Nebraska,” Maggie snorts. 

“Well, I’d like to have seen you try to take them down,” Alex says.

“I bet you would, Danvers,” Maggie says with a wink and doesn’t miss the way Alex nearly spills her drink. 

The silence is more comfortable now, punctuated with Kara’s soft snores, completely unaware of the conversation happening mere metres away.

“So tell me about them, your friends” Maggie says, running her finger around the edge of her cup, staring across at Alex. “I want to know them before you find them again.”

Maggie says it so sincerely that it takes a few seconds for the words to process properly. Having someone around who is full of so much hope and optimism and trust that there was good left in the world is something Alex was sure she would never really get used to. It wasn’t delusional hope either, not to her; she worked with facts, and the fact was that she didn’t know what had happened to her friends. They could still be out there, and that fuels her with some kind of energy, and keeps the last lingering flame of hope she had left alive. 

So she does. She talks, and she talks until her throat hurts and she soothes it with more whiskey. Maggie never interrupts, she just sits there, hanging on to Alex’s every word, laughing at the stories she tells of Winn and James, the intense missions under expert leadership of J’onn, especially attentive when she starts talking about her strange relationship with Lucy, from near enemies to friends, to Lucy being someone Alex would trust with her life.

“She arrested me once,” Alex says simply and Maggie almost chokes on her drink.

“She did  _ what _ ?”

“Something about treason,” Alex shrugs. “Kara talked her out of it though.”

“And somehow you stayed friends?”

“Somehow,” Alex mutters. “To tell you the truth I never could figure Lucy out. But I trusted her, no question. I don’t think she ever knew that and now I might never get to tell her.”

And just like that the moment is gone. The room feels cold, the flame in her stomach starts to die and she hates it, she shouldn’t have to feel like this not when this had been a day she could only have dreamed of. And for Maggie to be here too felt like the rarest gift left on Earth. 

She pushes the chair back from the table, can feel Maggie’s eyes on her as she rummages through the first aid kit she had taken from the medicine cabinet earlier. 

“Here.”

She turns back around holding a pair of scissors out to Maggie across the table. She takes the warily, eyebrows raised at Alex.

“What’re these for?”

“I never liked my hair long.”

Maggie laughs, shaking her head.

“You’re going to regret this,” she says but stands anyway, pulling out one of the chairs for Alex to sit down in.

“I’ll live with it,” Alex says, sitting with her back to Maggie. In her peripheral vision she can sense Maggie moving around behind her and when she tries to turn her head, Maggie’s hands on her shoulder stop her purely because she just freezes at the contact.

“Keep your head still or else you really will regret it,” Maggie says.

She’s no stranger to drinking, but after months and months of not touching a drop of alcohol, her body is no longer has the tolerance it once did. So between not being able to see Maggie and the whiskey, she feels less in control of her body’s reactions to whatever it is Maggie might do. This is proved when Maggie runs her fingers through her hair, untangling the worst of it; her fingers dig into her thighs and when Maggie does it again, her eyes flicker shut until Maggie’s voice startles them open.

“How short am I going?”

She can practically  _ hear _ Maggie’s smirk and her neck goes red; her reactions had not gone unnoticed.

“Um…” She clears her throat. “Just above my shoulders.”

“You know, you look good with long hair,” Maggie says softly and Alex hears the soft sound of scissors clipping her hair.

Alex’s voice is long gone; she can barely think when she’s so hyper aware of Maggie standing so close to her, the occasional touch of her fingers on her neck when she tilts her head, and then when she bends down to check the evenness of the cut, Alex nearly jumps out of the seat the feel of Maggie’s warm breath on the back of her neck. 

“Stay still, Danvers,” Maggie mutters, her voice low and the seconds drag on forever until finally Alex can breathe again when Maggie stands up. 

She tries to focus on anything to distract herself and settles on watching Kara sleep, the slow rise and fall of her chest. It works for a while, she’s not sure how long, but then Maggie walks around, puts the scissors down and then leans in dangerously close, bringing her hands to Alex’s newly cut hair, checking the length.

All the breath rushes out of Alex, she’s certain Maggie can hear her heart thundering in her chest as she checks her work; there’s nothing in the world that can distract her so the best she can do is close her eyes. 

“Not bad,” Maggie whispers, her breath warm with a hint of the whiskey from before, distractingly close to her skin. 

“Even if you do say so yourself,” Alex says and Maggie’s laugh twists her stomach into knots.

“You pull it off, Danvers.”

As soon as she opens her eyes she knows it’s a mistake; her heart nearly melts at the sight. Time stops for them. She dares to believe that she sees Maggie’s warm brown eyes flick down to her lips, she tells herself it’s not just the whiskey, and she wants to move, she desperately wants to close the very small gap between them but her entire body is frozen with anticipation, knowing that if she just moves her head slightly -

And just like that the world starts turning again. Maggie steps back, abrupt and so fast she almost falls over backwards. The warmth is gone, but the feeling of her breath against Alex’s skin doesn’t disappear, yet the room feels far colder than it did just seconds before. She stays fixed to the spot, her brain foggy, blinking at the now empty space in front of her. 

There had been just milliseconds between everything changing and everything staying the same. And she didn’t like the side of the line she was now on as she watches Maggie run a hand through her hair, scratch her jaw, red, maybe embarrassed heat colouring her cheeks, looking anywhere but Alex. 

“Well… I’m all done here,” Maggie stammers out, gesturing vaguely in Alex’s direction. 

“Thanks,” Alex says, her voice sounding so far from her own. 

“You should get some sleep,” she says, gesturing in the vague direction of the top bunk. “I’ll stay up, just in case, you should… you should rest.” 

Alex doesn’t need to hear the offer twice. She’s not going to stay awake and be in Maggie’s company any longer than she has to, she can’t bear the silence, the awkwardness, the lingering possibility of what could have been if either of them had just been brave enough to close that gap. 

She hesitates when she passes Maggie. She wants to say something, she wants some kind of acknowledgement that it wasn’t all in her head. But the way Maggie still won’t meet her eyes is confirmation enough. So she carries on, climbs into the bunk above Kara and watches as Maggie sits down and pulls the bottle of whiskey back to her.

Alex closes her eyes, tries to shut her brain down to let her body relax but it’s impossible.  _ Everything is the same _ , she thinks to herself. And yet she knows that everything has changed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I'm sorry... well, no, I'm not. I did say it was a slow burn after all (and a definite sanvers endgame). Thanks again for all your wonderful comments, you don't know how much they make writing this worth it! I hope you stick with me on this, especially through the next few chapters cause things are going to get a lot more interesting...


	10. didn't we almost have it all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit nervous about posting this chapter, but what's life without a little risk?

“Maybe we should just stay here, Alex.”

Kara pokes idly at the tin of food she’s eating with her fork. Alex tears her eyes away from the wall past Kara’s shoulder she has been staring at unblinkingly for however long. It would be so easy for her to agree, to let them just stay in the shelter for the rest of their lives, to not take another step outside into a world that was so empty. It’d be so easy to give in and just, for once, stop fighting.

But she can’t. She won’t. She has to get Kara to Boston, she has to take the chance that there would be something there to cure her, she has to believe in the good like Maggie had told her to. They could stay here. If she knew how much time Kara had left, she could let them stay here for as long as possible. But she doesn’t know, she has no way of knowing how long Kara has left, how long before things start to get beyond help. If she waits too long, she would never forgive herself.

“I wish we could,” Alex sighs and Kara looks up at her, blue eyes sad, tired, and Alex can only hope the look reflected back at Kara from her is one of strength and belief that they would somehow, against all the odds, make it. 

“It’d be easier,” Kara says.

It would, there was no denying that. But nothing in their lives had ever been easy.

 

Nearly as soon as Maggie is awake, they leave.

The longer her and Kara sit there, the more Alex just wants to get up and go. She has no desire to stay in the shelter for a second more than she has to, not least of which because the longer they sit there, the more she realises what she is going to be leaving behind.

Safety, supplies, a sanctuary. And as soon as they step out of the hatch, there would be no going back. 

The only thing Alex won’t miss is the tenuous connection to what could have been. She was very, very eager to get away from the place where the tension had nearly snapped before Maggie had backed down. Being on the road again would give her something else to focus on apart from the crushing weight of loss for something she never truly had that was compressing her chest.

“We can’t just stay here another night?” Maggie asks her quietly when Kara is out of earshot. 

Alex doesn’t answer her immediately, it hurts too much to look directly at Maggie and instead she focuses on forcing another tin of food down the side of her pack. 

“No, we can’t,” Alex says bluntly, putting all her weight onto the pack so she can zip it up again.

Maggie stays standing next to her for hour-long seconds, silent, and just like that the tension is back, Alex can sense it in the small gap between them that Maggie wants to say something, or do something. And more than last night, Alex is overcome with the overwhelming feeling that she was not alone in what she felt; she  _ isn’t _ alone.

“Alex -”

“We should go,” she interrupts, still not looking at Maggie. 

She doesn’t have time to handle the verbal rejection right now. Because sure, even if Maggie did feel the same way, there was a big difference between feeling and acting on those feelings. She had made it quite clear by moving away that she wasn’t going to do the latter. The knowledge of that, Alex can handle. She can put it into a tiny box and nail it shut and let it gather dust. The confirmation? That was an entirely different game.

 

She’s the last person to emerge from the bunker and back to the reality of endless grey sky and bleak, empty surroundings. She closes the hatch, turns the wheel until the lock clicks into place. When she turns to the others, it’s to find Kara hugging herself, staring down at her feet, thoroughly defeated. 

“I’m sorry,” Alex says, resting a hand on Kara’s shoulder.

“We were safe there,” Kara says.

“I know,” Alex says. “But staying there wouldn’t have saved you.”

“Maybe we should just stay anyway,” Kara says so softly that Alex almost misses it. Her hand tightens slightly on Kara’s shoulder, the back of her throat goes dry and she can feel Maggie watching them intently.

“Don’t say things like that,” Alex says quietly but firmly. 

“But -”

“Don’t, Kara,” she says more sternly. “All my life I’ve tried to protect you, from anything that could hurt you and this is no different. So I’m getting you to a place where you can be saved.”

“Kara, it’s going to be okay,” Maggie says suddenly from nearby; Alex remains staring at her sister until Kara nods, the movement more a jerk of her head than resigning herself to the fact that Alex would stop at nothing to make sure her sister got to safety.

 

***

They walk silently down the other side of the hill until they find the road again. The only sounds are their footsteps and the occasional cough from Kara. Then the road thins out and disappears altogether and they’re back to walking over dead grass and up sharp inclines, Alex trying to spot a clear path as she stands on the crest of a hill. In the distance, beyond the collapsed tangle of power lines, she can just about make out the crumbling sign of a gas station.

It acts as a marker, hopefully somewhere that Alex can figure out where the hell they are and if they’re even going in the right direction. Darkness creeps up on them as they take the long route around to avoid the power lines, the night hurrying them along the road. They’re not even tired, Alex is sure they could get further, but she’s not willing to let them wander through unknown territory in the pitch black. She can't tell what it is, but there's a tingling sensation that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she's desperate to get out of sight and off the road.

A couple of cars lie abandoned on the forecourt. The fine rain sticks Alex’s hair to her skin, although now it wasn’t as long as it used to be thanks to Maggie and doesn’t get in her way as she kneels down in front of one of the cars, using her sleeve to wipe away the grime on the plate. 

“What does it say?” Maggie calls over from where she’s standing with Kara. 

Irrationally, in a moment where anger spikes in Alex’s gut as it had every time she had glanced at Maggie since they left the shelter, she doesn’t want to answer. It’s a fleeting feeling, but it’s there. 

“Ohio plate,” she says as she stands; it’s not as far as she wanted to be, but as she wasn’t currently in some lab in Boston with Kara cured by her side, nowhere would be far enough. 

“That’s good, we’re getting closer,” Maggie says when Alex rejoins them, but she ignores her. Of course, she knows deep down, below layers of hurt, confusion, rejection, that Maggie is right, that her optimism is not so far off but actually it’s something they all have to keep in mind as they make their way east. 

In the distance they hear a low rumble of thunder and Alex glances at the abandoned store warily. She isn’t exactly keen to go inside; the closer they get, the more scared she gets about venturing into the unknown. One reckless mistake on her part could lead to the end of the line. But she shoulders the responsibility, as she always did, and leads the way inside the run-down store with smashed windows and a door swinging precariously on it’s hinges.

Unlike the bunker, the shelves here were empty, a lined with a think covering of dust, a couple of empty cardboard boxes rotting around. Freezers stand with their doors torn off, and a couple even looked as though they had been ransacked for parts, wires torn out the back. 

They squeeze into the space behind the till counter, sheltered enough from the wind whistling through the open door and out of sight. Alex deliberately sits herself down next to Kara, her sister acting as a buffer between her and Maggie as the silence continues while she lights a fire with the matches she had taken from the bunker.

“Alex, are you okay?”

She’d be lying if she thought the question from Kara would never come. She hazards a glance at Maggie who stays staring at the fire, holding her hands out to warm them. Kara frowns when Alex turns to her and says, “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? You’ve barely spoken all day,” Kara says, and Alex doesn’t for a second think Kara believes her answer.

“Just tired, really I’m okay,” Alex says with what she hopes is a convincing smile. Kara either believes her, or she’s decided that Alex won’t tell her and drops it because she just keeps the frown on her face but then looks between Maggie and Alex and then at the fire.

They eat in silence too, passing around the tin of food Maggie extracts from her pack. It starts to get uncomfortably hot in the small space when they’re so close to the fire but when Kara stands up, there’s a rush of cold air in the space she’s just vacated. 

“I’m going to have a look around,” she says and then puts a hand on Alex’s shoulder when she tries to get up too. “I’ll be fine,” Kara says. “You should stay here… get some rest, if you’re tired,” she adds pointedly, almost glaring at Alex and gesturing with a subtle tilt of her head at Maggie.

She wanders off, scouring the shelves as she goes and Alex takes a moment to watch after her before staring back into the flames, adding some more cardboard to the fire that burns almost instantly.

Maggie peers around the side of the counter to where Kara is standing on her tiptoes to look over the top of the back shelves. Alex looks away when she turns back, slumping against the counter and bringing her knees to her chest, still looking anywhere but Alex.

“She doesn’t think we’ll make it, does she?”

Alex hadn’t expected Maggie to speak, let alone in such a soft tone she almost misses it. 

“It doesn’t matter if she believes it or not,” Alex says. “I can keep hoping we’re going to make it, and that can be enough for the both of us.”

“We will make it,” Maggie says. “She just needs convincing of that.”

“You think I haven’t tried to convince her?” Alex says, and Maggie recoils slightly at the harshness of her tone.

“I’m not saying that, just maybe you don’t have to be the only one to try,” Maggie says and Alex has to force herself from rolling her eyes because  _ not this again _ . It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate what Maggie is trying to say, more that this is the thing she chooses to talk about considering what had happened not twenty four hours previously under the influence of whiskey and no personal space.

So Alex snaps.

“No offence, but I know my sister like I know my own mind and I know when she can and can’t be convinced there’s some chance we’re going to make it,” she says. “I’ve been doing it far longer than you’ve known us, before this whole world went to shit.” 

She’s not taking advice from Maggie now, she’s not going to just take Maggie stating the blindingly obvious when it was clear that Maggie couldn’t see what was right in front of her. But no, that wasn’t true; she did see it. Alex saw it in the way she had consciously chosen to draw herself so close to Alex that she could feel her breath against her lips, and then chosen to move away like she had been burned. She saw and she ran and took what feels like a piece of Alex’s heart with her. So Alex has no time to take advice from Maggie.

“This again? Seriously?” Maggie scowls and of course she wasn’t going to just back down. “I'm never going to convince you to let me help, am I? I'm never going to be good enough to help you look after Kara -”

“Not good enough? You don't get to talk about not good enough,” Alex says, her voice raised, standing to try and get away from the rising tension. 

“Yeah, actually, I do,” Maggie says, matching Alex’s volume and stance so that Kara starts walking back to them, but the other two don't acknowledge her. “Because you have made it quite clear, many times, that I am not good enough to be on this journey with you. You don't trust me, you don't think I'm capable of helping -”

“Maggie -”

“Stay out of it, Kara,” Alex says firmly, holding up a hand to silence her sister.

“You know what I think?” Maggie continues, fire in her voice. “I don't think you ever wanted me to come with you! Kara convinced you, she practically had to beg you not to leave me behind, you have wanted rid of me since the moment you met me! It'd be easier for you if I wasn't here -”

“Maybe it would be!”

She doesn't mean to say it. She doesn't mean it in the way that makes Maggie’s face fall, she doesn't mean it in the way that makes Maggie hide the pain so quickly, but not quickly enough.

But it would be easier. It  _ would _ . But Alex doesn't want easy if that means she isn't there, because even though right now she’s angry, she’s hurt because Maggie walked away, she does not want to imagine the rest of this life without Maggie Sawyer in it.

“Alex, you don't mean that -” Kara says, practically begging her sister to stop.

“I think she does,” Maggie says, her voice trembling with either hurt or barely concealed fury. “She wants me gone, that's exactly what she wants.”

“You have no clue what I want,” Alex snarls and her brain is screaming at her to say that it’s the exact opposite, of course she doesn’t want Maggie to leave, she wants Maggie to always be by their side, by her side but she’s too angry to let the words out. 

“What’s gotten into the two of you?” Kara starts, eyes wide with confusion, standing between the two of them with her hands held out, but Maggie stops her. 

“Don’t look at me, Kara, ask your sister, she’s the one who keeps flipping a coin to decide if she’s happy for me to be here or wishes I was still in Nebraska,” Maggie yells, taking a step forward but Alex is far from intimidated. “Why is it so difficult for you to just make up your mind and tell me the truth?”

“Who the hell are you to preach at me for not being able to make my mind up?” Alex shouts back, drawing herself up to her full height, voice carrying over the sound of the rain on the forecourt. 

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean!”

“Keep your voices down -”

“Back off, Kara -”

And then the world shakes with an almighty bang that scares all other thoughts out of Alex’s head as she makes a grab for Kara, her heart beating a furious rhythm in her throat from the shouting and the echoes of what sounded like a gun being fired.

There’s silence again, only the sound of Maggie’s harsh breathing, and maybe it was just one of the gas pumps exploding from a crack of lightning from the storm overhead but then -

_ BANG! _

Maggie’s hands fly to her pack, grabbing the shotgun and whirling around, the fight forgotten. 

“What was -”

Alex holds up a hand again to silence Kara, her other hand gripping the handle of the gun in the pocket of her coat, hot prickles of fear trickling down her spine, cold sweat beading on her forehead and the whole world seems to have stopped, the pause button pressed until -

“You're surrounded! Come out with your hands where we can see them and no one needs to get hurt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points if you spot the Hamilton reference. I hope you're all ready for the storm that's about to come... Thanks again for all your amazing comments, so glad people are enjoying this fic as much as I'm enjoying writing it!


	11. the world turned upside down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Easter to all those who celebrate! Just a heads up, there is some violence in this chapter

“We know you're in there!” 

Alex maintains an iron grip on Kara’s arm, her heart beating a furious tattoo against her chest. Her mind is racing, trying to come up with a plan but there's only one exit and that's onto the forecourt. 

Three against who knew how many. They’d be walking into a hostile environment with no idea of what would be on the other side of that door and Alex knows all too well how that can end.

“Three seconds before we start shooting!” the voice, a man’s, harsh and low, calls.

“Alex, what do we do?” Kara breathes, looking for her sister to take control, the hot-shot agent who had never backed down from leadership and yet here she stood rooted to the spot, unable to think because this was unlike anything she’d experienced before, to be so unprepared in a life or death situation.

“One!”

They’re running out of time, running out of time and she has to decide what to do, fight or flight, surrender and hope they can fight later -

“Two!”

Decision time, time to be a leader, time to act, time, time, time and -

“Three!”

“Wait!”

And their time’s up.

Maggie and Kara turn to her, and she tries to convey what she hopes is a brave face, one that makes it look like she knows what she’s doing when really, she’s as clueless as the rest of them. She’s not naive enough to hope that when they walk out there, it will be people just like them and not a group of bounty hunters, murderers, cannibals, whoever else could cause them harm.

“We’re coming out now,” Alex says, taking her hand off the butt of her gun, gesturing at Maggie to do the same; she hesitates, but lowers the shotgun anyway, putting it back down by her pack. 

 

Alex leads the way to the door of the building, her steps cautious. Maggie has no idea what’s about to happen, but she damn well hopes Alex has a better plan than she does. Everything before has been forgotten, pushed aside, all she can focus on is the fear pumping through her veins because dammit, she’s survived this long, she’s survived bounty hunters, forest fires, near starvation, she doesn’t want to go down without a fight.

She knows what Alex is doing, she’s not giving whoever is out there an excuse to shoot them on sight. A chance to negotiate, to let them continue on with their lives rather than the alternative. She turns back looking for some reassurance that Maggie has her back, and she nods, keeping Kara in between her and her sister.

“You’ve got six guns aimed at you and ready to be fired so keep your hands where we can see them!” the man shouts as Alex pushes open the door with her foot, her hands already raised above her head.

Unnaturally white light bounces off the rain covering the forecourt, blinding Maggie for a split second; it's long enough for everything to get turned upside down.

She gets a glimpse of torches, the outlines of about six figures standing there before someone strong grabs her roughly by the arm and drags her to one side, ropes twisting around her wrists, locking her hands together.

Then when her eyes finally adjust to the intrusion of light, everything falls into place. Two trucks are parked on the forecourt, beaten up and rusted, and their owners are scattered around, holding various weapons, sawn-off shotguns, maces wrapped in barbed wire, torches and now Alex, Kara and herself. Her shoulders strain with the tension of having her arms pulled around her back and she struggles against the grip of the man holding her. 

One of the men, about a head taller than Kara, walks over to where the Danvers sisters are being held and Maggie sees Alex immediately tense up when he hovers in front of Kara. She catches Alex’s eye, hoping, praying, Alex doesn’t do anything stupid, that she takes her time because if she lashes out, it can only end badly.

“Don’t touch her,” Alex snarls, struggling against the ropes binding her hands, managing to drag her and her captor a few steps forward but then the man standing in front of Kara turns to her and the sneer on his face makes Maggie’s stomach flip over.

“Oh yeah?” he says, his voice unnervingly soft. “What’re you gonna do about it if I do?”

Alex doesn’t even have time to open her mouth before there’s the sound of knuckles hitting flesh and then a grunt of pain and Kara screaming, “stop! Don’t hurt her!”

Maggie strains harder at the man holding her back, trying to get free, to get to Alex, her mind clouded by fury at these men, this gang, at the sheer senseless brutality of what’s happening.

The man pulls his fist back, gearing up for another punch.

“Stop!” Maggie yells, distracting the man before he can follow through. “I swear if you touch her -”

The man holding her yanks her head back with a hard tug of her hair, hot, harsh breath against her neck.

“You keep talking and we’ll see just how hurt your girlfriend gets,” he snarls and Maggie forces her eyes to stay open, to not give in to the fear and look for some kind of way out of this situation. A day ago they were safe. Just one day.

The man loosens his grip on her hair and she watches, holding her breath as the other man, the one who had punched Alex, who she wants to tear limb from limb, steps back from the older Danvers sister and turns back to Kara who looks far braver than Maggie feels.

Her heart is pounding in her gut, looking back and forth between Alex who is keeled over and winded, and Kara who is staring at this man right in the eyes and all Maggie can do is watch as the realisation dawns on his face as to who he has captured in an abandoned gas station in the middle of Ohio.

“Well, this changes everything.”

He wasn’t wrong.

“National City’s big hero,” he says, voice carrying across the forecourt. Of course he knew, he was a bounty hunter, trained to distinguish the aliens from everyone else, trained to find the biggest prize. “Not looking very heroic now, Supergirl.”

He raises a hand and for a moment, Maggie is ready to fight and fly at him, but he strokes Kara’s cheek with the back of his hand and somehow that’s  _ worse _ . At least in Alex’s eyes. 

Maggie doesn’t have time to scream at Alex to stop because Alex is lunging forward, trying to break free, shouting “get the hell off her!” and then she drops to her knees, letting out a howl of pain that runs through Maggie like a knife, Alex’s arm twisted at a dangerous angle behind her back so that with one move, it would snap.

“Does she ever learn?” the man taunts, directing his question at Kara who remains stoic, unmoving, not giving him the satisfaction; she may not have superpowers anymore, but in Maggie’s opinion, Kara Danvers was still a hero. Brave, unfaltering, knowing when to stop fighting and just wait for it, wait for the chance to strike back and defend the people she loves.

The man holding Alex pulls her roughly to her feet, dragging her back over so Kara is even further out of reach. 

“Search them.”

On the order, a man, younger than Kara, steps in front of Maggie, so close she wants to retch at the smell of him. She vaguely senses more people moving into the store no doubt looking for all their stuff, all the things that they had managed to salvage from the shelter, food, medicine, water, inconsequential small things that made all the difference in the apocalypse, new toothbrushes, forks, things Maggie can’t even believe she’s thinking about when a group of bounty hunters have beaten Alex and are intent on taking Kara away.

She tries to avoid looking at the man patting her down far too slowly but his touch  _ burns _ , there’s a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth and God, she wants to lash out even if she’ll be worse off for it.

“Don’t even think about it,” she growls, hoping she sounds aggressive enough to cover up the shake in her voice from the fear that’s coursing through her bloodstream with every passing second. 

It’s not like she’s in any position to argue or fight back, but her words have done it and the man steps back, his friend behind her laughing and tugging more sharply on her hair to remind her who has the upperhand in this situation.

Across the other side of the forecourt, the leader has found Alex’s gun, tossing it between his hands and panic rises like bile in the back of Maggie’s throat because there is no way of predicting the outcome of this battle, he could shoot or he could not, he has no reason to keep anyone alive but Kara, so why  _ wouldn’t _ he shoot -

But then the men he had sent into the store walk back out, holding their packs and Maggie’s shotgun and the world calms as much as it can for just a moment. 

“Not a bad haul,” one of the men says, dumping their packs onto the back of one of the trucks. Their leader murmurs his agreement before turning back to Kara and Maggie just prays that Alex doesn’t do anything reckless.

“So, Supergirl, you’ve got two choices,” the man drawls, gesturing with the gun, Alex’s gun. “You can either come quietly and stop fighting or you can resist, try and escape and then watch as I pull the trigger and paint the concrete with the insides of your friend’s pretty little head.”

“Kara -”

“One more word out of you and that one gets the same,” the man spits at Alex, pointing in Maggie’s direction and Alex falls into a silent, volcanic rage. “So what’s it going to be?”

Maggie knows exactly what Kara will choose before Kara’s silence answers the question. And for the first time, Alex doesn’t try to fight back, the threat all too real, and part of Maggie wants Alex to fight for Kara, to scream and kick and punch, but there’s also that part of her which makes her head spin because Alex is not fighting so Maggie doesn’t get hurt. Alex is fighting to keep her alive by not fighting at all. And Maggie isn’t used to it. She isn’t even sure she wants to get used to it, she doesn’t want to feel grateful that she is the reason that Alex isn’t fighting for her sister. 

“Good choice,” the man says, motioning to the man holding Kara and he starts walking her over to the back of one of the trucks. “You’re coming with us, too,” he says, stepping over to Alex. “I don’t think Supergirl will try anything stupid when there’s a gun pressed to your head.”

All Maggie can do is watch and start praying to a God she hasn’t believed in since she was seven that someone will come and all hell will break loose and they will get out of this in one piece. 

The man starts to drag Alex over to the truck too, Maggie can see her mind working, failing to come up with a plan that doesn’t involved Kara, Maggie or herself dead. She’s defeated. Agent Danvers does not fall easily, Maggie knows it, but she had fallen, and  _ how the hell can this be happening? _

“What about this one?” the man holding her shouts across the forecourt, making her step forward. The leader barely spares her a glance but it’s enough to know what he’s about to say.

“Do whatever you want,” he says as Kara is made to climb onto the back trailer of the truck. “Kill her and leave her here to rot for all I care.”

Her heart stops in the time it takes for a gun to click and Alex to scream, “no! Maggie!” and any second now she’s going to die but then nothing fires and the man throws his fist out that’s holding Alex’s gun, landing on the back of Alex’s head with a sickening crunch. 

“Alex! Stop hurting her!” Kara pleads. “Let them go, you only want me, just take me!”

She’s about a second away from throwing up, she can’t tear her eyes away from Alex’s limp form behind held up by two of the men, her body tossed worthlessly into the back of the truck. 

“Don’t worry, you won’t be with her long,” the man says, gesturing to the two men standing closest to Maggie and suddenly she’s being dragged backwards by rough hands, the ropes digging into her wrists and the truck holding Alex and Kara starts with a low rumble that makes the ground shake.

“Maggie!”

“I’ll find you, Kara! I’ll come back -”

One of the men drives a punch into her stomach, knocking the air out of lungs and sending her crashing to the floor on her knees, the rainwater seeping through her jeans. Kara’s shouts become lost in the sound of the engine and when Maggie looks up, blinking away the tears, she can just make out the truck pulling away, taking Alex away, taking Kara away, away… 

And, just as it was always meant to be, she’s alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been putting off posting this chapter for a while for various reasons, but the next few chapters are ones I've been really looking forward to writing. There's something good going to come, I promise. Once again, thank you for all your support, it means a lot!


	12. start a riot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this took so long, but it was a combination of horrible writer's block and university stress. I'm not entirely happy with this, but I didn't want to keep you all waiting any longer!

She’s not afraid to die.

After the world had ended, she knew any day could have been her last. She fought to make it so that she survived, but the knowledge that her next day on earth could be her last haunted her. She pushed away that fear a long time ago, because everything had its time and everything ended, and so somewhere down the line, she stopped being afraid of dying.

Maggie Sawyer is not scared to die. But that doesn’t mean she won’t go down without a fight.

The only trouble was, now that fight wasn’t just hers to lose. It was a fight for Alex and Kara’s survival as much as it was for her own, as it had been for nearly a month, as it had been the moment she had found the two sisters stranded in Wymore. 

Maggie holds her breath, waits, wonders, all the different ways in which this could end running over each other in her mind. She could die, that much is true. She could die at any second. She could also live, potentially, maybe, if she fights hard enough, so she’s going to fight even if it kills her.

“You know, you could just let me go,” she tries, although it’s almost a laughable attempt. “Your friend’s not gonna know, and I’m not going to cause any trouble.”

The shorter of the two men, the one with sandy coloured hair barks out a laugh.

“And we’re supposed to believe you’d just go quietly and not go searching for your friends?” he sneers. “Not a chance.”

She hadn’t expected simple negotiation and reasoning to work, not in a world where basic morals had no place.

“Can you at least untie my hands?”

The two men exchange a look before the taller, younger one speaks. She’s trying to keep her mind focussed on what’s happening, tries not to think about how, as each second passes in her attempt to escape, Kara and Alex are slipping further and further away.

“We’re not stupid,” he says in a long, drawling voice.

_ Could’ve fooled me _ .

“Are you really that scared of me?” Maggie says, trying to keep the shake out of her laugh. “And if you’re going to kill me, what’s the big deal? You’re armed, I’m not.”

There’s a pause and for a heartstopping moment, Maggie thinks she’s going to hear the cock of a gun and then the world will go blank and it will all be over. But then suddenly her hands are free and she winces as she rubs her wrists, red from where the ropes had dug into her skin as she had struggled to get to Alex and Kara.

It only takes the thought of the Danvers sisters for courage to find her again. This fight wasn’t just for her, but for the two people she has left in the world who right now, can’t fight for themselves.

The two men have taken a step back, talking in hushed tones about something, that if she cared enough about, she would try to listen to. It can only be about her fate, so she starts her plan to take the choice out of their hands.

Maggie sits back on her ankles, brushes her hand against the loose fabric of her trousers, subtly enough to feel the handle of the knife she’s had strapped there for situations not too dissimilar to the one she finds herself in now. She had been one step ahead of the game when she had stopped the man from searching her earlier; he had never found her last resort.

Not daring to look around, she extracts the blade from its harness swiftly with as little movement as possible, bringing her hands to her front and concealing the weapon under her sleeve. Just in time, too, as the men, confident that they have the upper hand, walk back over to her. 

The shorter man grabs her arm and pulls her to her feet. She keeps a tight grip on the handle of the knife tucked in her palm as he marches her over to the wall where he can shoot her and her brains won’t litter the entire forecourt. Not that he’s going to get that far.

She braces her left against the wall, releasing the tension from her shoulders in a shuddering breath. Her throat feels dry, her mind has gone completely blank and she’s running on instinct. 

“Any last words?”

The gun clicks.

No last words. She’s not dying today.

And before the man has a chance to pull the trigger, before he has the chance to take his next breath, she drives the hand holding the knife back with as much force as she can, plunging the blade into the soft muscle of his upper thigh.

His scream barely registers as she moves faster than she thought was possible, the adrenaline propelling her into action, clearing her mind, disarming him in one quick motion as he clutches his leg and before the other man can draw his own weapon, Maggie has the gun levelled at his forehead. 

It all happens in a matter of seconds but it feels like she just ran a marathon, her blood pounding in her ears as she fights to keep the shake out of her hand, not even allowing herself a second to gather her thoughts. 

“Drop the gun, now.”

It’s then she realises just how young the man is. His eyes are wide, terrified, his hands come up by his head. He looks even younger than Kara, although not by more than a few years. 

“Please! Please don’t shoot!”

She decides even before he begs that she’s not going to pull the trigger. She’s not going to be that person, not now, not ever. She’s lost so much in this world that she can’t lose herself, too. She holds out the hand holding the bloody knife for his gun and he gives it to her.

“Keys,” she says, keeping the gun raised but her finger off the trigger.

“In the truck, they’re in the truck,” he stammers out.

“Where did they take my friends?”

“Don’t tell her!” the man on the floor shouts out suddenly.

“I don’t think you’re in much of a position to make that call,” Maggie says, keeping her focus on the boy, but his friend’s words seem to have done the trick and he stays silent; however scared the boy was of Maggie aiming a gun at his head, he was more scared of the man wounded on the floor.

“What do you care? They’re probably dead by now,” he spits at her and in one long stride Maggie is hovering over him, anger boiling inside her at the mere thought that she is not going to get there in time, a dull pain in her stomach, the beginning of grief for people she hasn’t even lost yet. But no, they weren’t dead. She would know, she would have felt it.

“You better hope that’s not true, or there’s no telling what I might do,” she snarls and raises her leg, pressing the heel of her boot onto the man’s thigh just where the puncture wound was and he cries out. “Tell me where they are.”

She puts more weight on her heel and the man chokes out a sob, struggling to try and pull his leg out from under Maggie’s foot but she keeps it in place. His face pales, hands trying to grab at Maggie’s ankle until one particularly hard press has him gasping out the answer.

“There’s a house,” he pants, gesturing somewhere to the east. “Other end of the town, old style, they’ll b-be there.”

“For your sake, I hope you’re telling the truth,” Maggie growls before finally lifting her boot off the man’s leg and he scrambles to the wall, the fabric of his trouser leg saturated with blood.

Even though they were going to kill her without a second thought, the idea of leaving two people like this isn’t something that sits easy with her. How would abandoning them here be any different than putting a bullet in their heads?

No matter how much she tells herself that she has no other choice, she knows she’s going to dwell on her choice for a long time. If this was the consequence for saving the people she cared about, then she would just have to live with it. 

Right now the only thing she can think about is finding Alex and Kara. Without sparing the two men another look, she picks up her pack they had left sitting by one of the broken gas pumps and shoulders it, walking towards the rusted truck.

Sure enough, she finds the keys in the ignition, drops the pack, knife and both the guns onto the passenger seat. The engine stutters into life and it’s only after she’s reversed onto the road does the adrenaline rush out her system in a choked sob that claws its way up her throat.

She grips the wheel so tightly to stop her hands from shaking that her knuckles turn white. Everything that has happened hits her like a punch straight to the gut. One minute they had been arguing in an abandoned store and the next, Alex had been kicked to the dirt, knocked out and taken along with Kara and all she could do was stand there.

The last words Alex had heard from her had been fuelled by anger and resentment that Maggie doesn’t even believe in. That cannot be how Alex remembers her. They’ve come too far for that and this cannot be how it ends. She’s very much aware that she is running out of time.

The further she drives, the more her stomach feels like a dead weight. That is, until she follows the bend in the road and there, just ahead of her on the left is a sweeping gravel driveway at the top of which sits an old plantation style house.

She cuts off the engine instantly, listening out for any sign that she’s been heard. She leaves it as long as she dares before grabbing her pack and one of the guns, putting her knife back in it’s harness, steeling herself with a deep breath.

Find Alex and Kara or die trying. 

The truck that had taken them was nowhere to be seen. Maybe just this once, luck was on her side and the men have moved on to the next group of innocent travellers unlucky enough to be caught, leaving the house unguarded.

It’s highly unlikely, but if she didn’t believe in the hope she was always reminding Alex to have, then what could she believe in?

She’s well aware she’s going to be vulnerable to attack, but there’s no way into the house without approaching it from the bottom of the driveway, exposed, and there was no way of getting Kara and Alex out without going into the house. So she has no choice. 

Taking as much time as she dares to check the windows for any sign of movement, Maggie starts creeping up the edge of the driveway, keeping off the gravel. Only the thought of finding Alex and Kara alive stop her fear from getting the better of her. 

Somehow, she makes it to the rotting veranda, the wood damp and the white paint peeling away from the walls. Dead ivy crawls around the door, the wall wet against her back as she leans on it, gathering herself before turning her head to peer through the window.

She waits, listens out for any sound that the house is occupied. Oddly, the silence isn’t as comforting as she thought it would be; if no one was here guarding the place, what were the chances that Alex and Kara were also here? What were the chances they were still alive?

But there’s chance enough for Maggie to duck down and jimmy the window until the rusted lock snaps and she can pull it open just wide enough for her to crawl through. She pushes her pack through the gap first, lowering it down gently onto the floorboards before she follows, scrambling to her feet as soon as she’s inside. 

Glass crunches under her feet and she freezes, looking down at the shattered chandelier. She doesn’t breathe again until she’s certain no one is going to come rushing in to find the source of the noise. Her panic both fades and increases as she looks around the room; Kara and Alex’s packs sit on a table surrounded by sleeping bags and blankets. So the man hadn’t been lying after all, but now she knows just how much danger she’s in. She’s running on borrowed, both for her own safety and Kara and Alex’s.

She checks her corners, holding the gun in her hands, as she makes her way into the hallway which is just as empty as the room she’s just left. It’s then that she sees it.

A door underneath the sweeping staircase with its broken banister, padlocked and bolted shut. Hiding something. Sure now that she’s alone, she rattles the lock in the vain hope that it’s loose or someone has messed up and not locked it properly. But she’s not that lucky. 

She’s tempted to shoot it off, but she’s not going to waste bullets when she might need them later. Glancing around, Maggie spots the door to the kitchen and beyond it, another door leading into the backyard. Rusted tools stand against the shed and she pockets the gun, picking up the shovel before going back to the basement door. 

She tests the weight of the shovel in her hands. There was no going back now. No matter how great the danger is, she isn’t just going to leave, not without her friends. The bounty hunters could be hours away by now. Or minutes. Or waiting on the other side of the door. 

But she knows who is there. It’s Alex and Kara. They have to be there, they must be, or else she’s out of ideas. She’s lost them. She just hopes she’s finding them alive and not… she can’t think about it, she can’t think about anything, there isn’t time and there is no other option.

She grips the base of the handle, raising the shovel and lining it up with the padlock, driving it down with as much strength as she can, over and over again until finally, the lock snaps off.

Maggie drops the shovel in favour of the gun, holding it steady in one hand as the other reaches for the handle.  _ Alive, alive, alive _ , the words cross her mind in time with her heartbeat, and, with her mind focussed on once more being in this world with Kara, with Alex, she turns the handle. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could say that I would update quicker next time, but life is pretty hectic right now. I'll have much more time on my hands in a couple of weeks, so apologies in advance for the wait, but I really hope you stick with me on this. Your support means so much, I love reading every comment you guys leave so thank you!


	13. it's been a year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this took so long, but i wanted to make sure i was as happy with it as i could be before posting it. this was my favourite chapter to write and something i had been building up to for ages, so i hope you all enjoy it!

Her immediate thought is that she’s dead. She has to be. The world is dark and silent and empty. Hollow. Nothing. Death is the only explanation. She’s dead and this is the afterlife. It’s just what death… is. After all, no one has ever come back to tell them the reality.

If this is death, Alex doesn’t care for it.

And then the pain hits. Throbbing, aching pain that trembles down her spine from the base of her skull. She wants to cry out but her tongue feels too big for her mouth, it feels as though every nerve in her body is on fire. She thought death was supposed to stop the pain. At least that’s what people had told her to stop her thinking death was such a terrible thing.

So maybe she isn’t dead.  Maybe she’s just dying.

“Alex? Alex, wake up.”

The voice is familiar, it stirs something deep inside her brain, tugging on a memory she can’t quite put into focus. The voice surrounds her, she can’t place where or who it’s coming from, it’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

“Alex, can you hear me?”

A second voice, one that is definitely Kara. God, she hopes she isn’t dead because if she is, that means Kara is too. If her sister is dead, she’s failed.

“Dammit, Danvers, wake up.”

_Danvers?_

The only person left who calls her Danvers is Maggie and there’s no way it can be her because Maggie was gone, taken, killed. So maybe this was the afterlife and they were all together again.

But the voice isn’t Maggie’s. She would know her voice anywhere. And she would give anything to hear it again, unless she really was dead. Then she wants Maggie as far away as possible, still fighting and surviving.

At this thought, the fog surrounding her brain clears slightly, the pain in her head becoming more acute, sharp and she starts to feel, hear, see more. Her fingers are numb with cold and when she tries to move them, something digs into her wrists and it only serves to frustrate her more because she can’t tell if she’s alive or dead and -

“She’s awake, Lucy!”

No, she is definitely dead.

If the other voice, the voice calling her Danvers, is who Kara is talking to, she is dead. There was no way she can possibly be alive if the person muttering “about time” is Lucy Lane.

Lucy Lane is dead. Rather, missing, presumed dead, gone from their lives for over a year now. Alex had buried that grief a long time ago, nailed the box shut and let it gather dust.

She’s definitely dead.

“Not yet you’re not,” the voice belonging to Lucy says and Alex realises she’s said the last part out loud. “Are you with us, Alex?”

Slowly, her eyes start to adjust to the darkness. She blinks rapidly until she can just make out the outlines of two people kneeling in front of her, Kara’s blonde hair the lightest thing in wherever the hell they are.

“What…” Her voice is hoarse, her throat dry and when she tries to sit up, her head swims and she slams her eyes shut again.

“Easy, easy,” Lucy says and then suddenly her hands are on Alex’s arm, easing her back down and it feels like she’s been hit with a freight train, because _it’s Lucy_. Lucy who had left for the desert base of the DEO, Lucy who had moved to DC, Lucy who had been across the country when the world had ended.

“It’s okay, Alex, just sit back,” Kara says and her hands take hold of hers.

“Crap, my head,” Alex groans, vaguely aware of the dampness of the wall seeping through her top, making her shiver.

“That would be from getting knocked out with your own gun,” Lucy says.

Alex forces her eyes open, trying to catch a glimpse to confirm that this really was Lucy in front of her.

“I’m hallucinating, right?” she says, though she hopes with everything she has that she’s wrong. “That’s why you’re here, it’s because I got knocked out and now my brain is playing tricks on me.”

“Well, as flattered as I am that you would choose to hallucinate me in times of need, I can assure you I’m not a figment of your imagination,” Lucy says and there’s the sound of shuffling and then a shoulder touching Alex’s.

“I can see her too, Alex,” Kara says, and between the pain in her head and the confusion, Alex’s heart soars. “It’s Lucy.”

“I have so many questions,” Alex mumbles, the sound of dripping water onto metal echoing like gunshots in her head.

“You and me both,” Lucy says somewhere to Alex’s left. “But I think we’ve got other things to be worrying about first.”

“Right. Priorities,” Alex says, although her mind is less than on the task at hand and more fighting the impulse to bombard them with questions about how the hell they have come to be in some kind of basement where the only other person around is _Lucy freaking Lane_.

But it’s a small world now, after all.

“Where the hell are we?” Alex asks.

“Not too far from the gas station,” Kara says.

Right, the gas station. The last place Alex remembers being before the world turned upside down and she was trying to get to Maggie and then everything had gone dark. Kara’s voice is so small and Alex knows exactly what she’s thinking; it’s the same thought that has been filtering through the rest of the mess in her head from the second she had woken up. It sends electric shocks of pain to her chest, battling with the sheer joy that Lucy is with them.

How can it be that she has lost one friend and yet found another? It’s more than bittersweet, it feels like a punishment. She can’t be happy Lucy’s back because she’s lost Maggie. Two people she has been pulled towards and lost, like they were the moon and she was the tide, drawn towards them but then inevitably pulled away. Maybe that was just how her life was supposed to be, built on gain and loss, a terrible balancing act and Alex just wants to _fall._

“I couldn’t get to her,” Kara says, stirring Alex out of the darkest depths of her mind. “I tried, but you were hurt and they told me if I tried they’d… they’d kill you and…”

“You did everything you could,” Alex says. She will not have Kara feeling guilty about this, if they really have lost Maggie. It was no one’s fault except for the bounty hunters and yet Alex can’t shake the feeling that if she had kept her mouth shut, if she had kept her feelings buried deep down, if she hadn’t yelled, then they wouldn’t be here.

And they wouldn’t have found Lucy.

Alex wants to scream at the injustice of it all.

“Alex is right, Kara,” Lucy says, the voice of reason. “You didn’t have a choice.”

“We always have a choice,” Kara mumbles and the other two fall silent; the fact Lucy isn’t questioning what Kara is talking about tells Alex all she needs to know. Kara has had this conversation with Lucy before and Alex wonders just how long she’s been out of it. She wants to slip back into that state, forget for a moment that Maggie is gone and Lucy is back and the conflicting emotions firing around her head… but no, Kara needs her. And now, Lucy needs her. And they need to get out of here. She can compartmentalise later, she can let the guilt and the happiness and the unsolvable conflict wash over her later. She can fall apart later.

“We’re gonna get out,” Alex says, reaching over with tied hands and finding Kara’s, squeezing them. “We’re gonna get out and they’re going to pay. And then we’re going to go back and we’ll look for Maggie, okay?”

“Okay,” Kara says softly and Alex tugs on her hands until Kara’s sat beside her, head on her shoulder. She isn’t even sure if there’s a chance Maggie is alive. There’s nothing convincing her otherwise, but if there is a chance, even the smallest possibility that Maggie is still breathing, then she will find her again.

“So what’s the plan?” Alex says, changing the subject to something more pressing. “We need to find a way out.”

“No, you need to sit there so you don’t throw up,” Lucy says and even though Lucy can’t see her, Alex rolls her eyes anyway.

“You haven’t changed,” Alex mutters, but stays sitting. “Is there even a way out?”

“One door at the top of the stairs,” Lucy says. “It was a bit of a shock when they opened it and threw you and Kara down them, that’s for sure.”

Alex snorts out a laugh; it was a bit of a shock waking up and talking to a ghost.

“So no way out.”

“Seriously?” Lucy says. “Giving up already? That’s not the Alex Danvers I know.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the Alex Danvers you know,” Alex says more harshly than she intended to and she swears she saw Lucy recoil slightly. She’s changed so much she’s surprised Lucy even recognises her. “Go on then, inspire me.”

“We just have to wait for the right time, and then strike,” Lucy says and Alex is grateful that for now, she’s ignoring what Alex said.

“Somehow I don’t think this is the first time you’ve thought of this plan,” Alex says dryly.

“Of course not, but it’s a lot easier to put into action with another trained federal agent and her alien sister,” Lucy fires back and then she places a hand on Alex’s shoulder as she pushes herself to her feet.

“An injured federal agent,” Kara points out, standing too.

“I’m fine, I can help,” Alex says, irritated, although the pain in her head is causing the edges of her vision to go slightly fuzzy. “What’s the plan?”

“One of us waits by the door,” Lucy says and by the sounds of it, she’s pacing; it reminds Alex of a time, what feels like eons ago, where Lucy would be confidently taking point as they planned an operation at the DEO base. “It’s usually just one of them who comes to check everything is as it should be -”

“So you’re suggesting we jump them?” Alex interrupts.

“To put it bluntly, yes,” Lucy says. “The other two disarm them while they’re being held down.”

“Great, and then what?”

“Then we run like hell,” Lucy finishes, silence following her words.

“That’s it?” Alex says, eyes wide. “That’s your master plan?”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Lucy says and Alex has to silently concede that no, she does not have a better idea. All they’ve been doing for months is running, she’s used to it by now, so it’s a plan she has some confidence in. With one small problem.

“You do realise that our hands are, quite literally, tied?” Alex says and she swears she can feel Lucy’s glare even if she can’t see it.

“I know, but it’s the only chance we’ve got,” Lucy says and Alex is about to reply when there’s the sound of heavy footfalls from above them.

Alex forgets how to breathe for a second, and the pain fades in her head as adrenaline starts to flood her body at the first sign of danger. Without even being able to see Lucy, after a year apart, they know what the other is thinking and move into action with a word.

“Kara, stay back,” Alex says but Kara’s weight disappears from beside her.

“Not a chance,” she says and the fear rises; Alex will fight, wants them all to fight, but not at the cost of her sister. She has lost too much today.

There’s no sound except for their heavy breathing and Alex strains her ears for any sign of movement. Just as she thinks the danger has passed, the footsteps sound again, pause and the collision of metal against metal makes her jump. Someone is breaking the lock, clearly not the bounty hunters but still just as likely to be an enemy.

“Ready?” Lucy breathes.

Neither Alex or Kara have the chance to reply. The lock splinters and the door opens, banging against the stone wall and before the people silhouetted in the doorway can even take another breath, Lucy throws herself towards them, grabbing the person by the neck and forcing them against the wall.

In their shock, the person drops what looks like a shovel and as Alex blinks away the pain from the intrusion of light, she realises whose throat Lucy has her hands wrapped around  and instinct takes over as she springs forward, tugging on Lucy to pull her away.

“Lucy! Stop!” Alex says, the stairs spinning under her feet as she tries to clear the splitting pain from her head, and everything is _all too much_. “Lucy, let go! It’s Maggie!”

And in an instant, more out of shock than anything else, Lucy releases her grip just as ALex pulls her back by the collar of her top, stumbling when Lucy collides with her.

“Maggie! Are you okay?” Kara comes rushing up the stairs, and Maggie waves a hand, coughing violently, massaging her neck. “Lucy!”

“I’m sorry!” Lucy says. “How was I supposed to know?”

Alex is inclined to agree; Maggie was the last person she expected to see, and now all her shock at the sudden reappearance of Lucy is being channeled into the equally unfathomable one of Maggie. Both of whom Alex had thought had died, and yet now they were standing before her, breathing, bruised but wonderfully alive and Alex doesn’t feel like falling anymore. And she sure as hell isn’t going to lose either of them again.

“Never mind that now,” Kara says quickly, glancing up at the stairs as Maggie finally stands up, taking deep breaths. “Let’s get out of here before we do anything else.”

She leads the way up the stairs, followed by Lucy who has a hand over her eyes to shield them from the light.

Alex feels like she’s rooted to the spot. The adrenaline is quickly leaving her system, leaving her body in stasis, between pain and disbelief, suspended halfway up the stairs, still caught between the time she had thought her world had ended and the world that was still turning above her.

“Come on, we need to go,” Maggie says, her voice slightly hoarse, and she’s avoiding Alex’s eyes; after what she had said to Maggie, Alex can hardly blame her and even more than before, she wants to get out and safe so she can apologise.

“You sure know how to make an entrance, don’t you?” Alex says, hiding the shake in her voice.

“Do you need some help?” Maggie offers without a reply but Alex shakes her head and feels like throwing up.

“I’ve had worse,” she grimaces, but still she lets Maggie untie her hands and guide her back up the stairs and she never wants Maggie to let go. She leads them into the room across the hallway and Alex doesn’t know where to look. Maggie’s touch is nearly enough to confirm that she really is there, and so Alex’s eyes fall to Lucy.

“It’s really you,” Alex says, unable to mask the trembling in her voice; she isn’t sure who she’s talking to but it’s Lucy who turns to face her.

Maggie steps to the side, giving them their space and part of Alex just wants to pull her back, because she feels like she’s floating and if she ever needed Maggie to ground her, now is the time.

“It’s really me,” Lucy says, stepping forward, shouldering a pack. “You didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?”

That was the thing, it had almost been that easy. One second and the world had ended. It really could have been that easy, too easy, because if Lucy was going to go down, it would be wrong that she wouldn’t do so without a fight.

“You look like hell, Alex,” Lucy says, her eyes bright and Alex is lost for a moment before she’s drawn to the dark purple bruising on Lucy’s left cheek, a sharp, healing cut above her eyebrow.

“Yeah, well… I look better than you,” Alex says.

“Not possible.”

And then before either of them can say another word, Alex finds herself wrapped in a hug that hurts in the best way possible and it takes her breath away. Lucy had never hugged her, not even when she had left for DC, and Alex is almost at a loss for what to do, stunned beyond all measure. But when she pulls Lucy tighter to her, the world feels just that little bit less empty, as though it has been waiting for this moment and now suddenly, Alex can let herself remember her old life.

Out of the corner of her eye she catches Maggie watching them, a soft smile on her face, and Alex’s heart almost can’t take it. Her new normal, with Maggie woven into it colliding with her old life, the one with her best friend Lucy by her side. And then Kara, the one constant, the person whose safety has been Alex’s mission from the age of fourteen, who is wiping her cheeks as she watches Lucy finally, finally let go of Alex only to be nearly knocked over by a hug of her own.

Alex has never felt more grounded in a world where she has constantly felt like she has been drifting. With Maggie in their lives, it had slowed the current considerably, but now? Now there was a permanence to it that Alex knew she was not letting go a second time.

Providing she had any choice in the matter. And when Maggie turns away from the window, the spark in her eyes gone, Alex knows she might not have any say.

“I hate to break up the reunion,” Maggie says and Lucy pulls back from Kara, her hands lingering on her arms as she turns towards the window. “But we’ve got company.”

In a second, Alex is by her side, gripping the edge of the rotting window frame as they watch a truck slowly turn into the driveway. The reality of the world comes crashing down onto them.

“Shit,” she breathes, grabbing Maggie’s wrist and pulling her away from the window. “Don’t tell me that’s the way you came,” she says but Maggie’s silence says it all.

Alex swears again, grabbing her pack and pushing Kara and Lucy out into the hallway.

“ _Now_ we run like hell,” Lucy says, grinning at Alex as though it hasn’t been a year and they’re in the middle of a dangerous op, high on adrenaline and arrogance, and even in the face of deadly danger, Alex can’t help but smile back.

“Through the kitchen,” Maggie says, taking the lead, pulling a gun out of her pocket that Alex recognises to be her own. There’s the sound of tires crunching against gravel and Alex’s heart is pounding furiously in her chest, matching a rhythm to the pain in her head as they move swiftly through the kitchen and out the back door.

The field behind the house provides no cover, and any second the bounty hunters are going to walk in and see the splintered lock and then… and then they would have nowhere to run. And Alex doesn’t think they’re going to get lucky a second time.

“Quick, down here,” Maggie says, and Alex reaches back to grab Kara’s wrist as Maggie leads them at a run through a broken fence and quickly down a small slope.

And then there’s the sound of yelling and Alex can’t help but turn back just as they skid to a halt, dropping onto their fronts behind a small clump of hedges. Through the twigs she can just make out the back door of the house, two men stepping out of it, frantically searching. She grips Kara’s hand even tighter, forces her eyes to stay open and willing the men to turn back and go inside because if they come closer she’s going to lose everything, just when she has everything back.

She holds her breath and the world feels like it’s spinning, she’s more focussed on the pain in her head and she wants to throw up. But then the men turn, one of them angrily kicks out at something before they turn and go back inside the house and finally, she can breathe again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... yeah, she's back! (also i'd like to just say that this is still sanvers endgame; alex is just happy to have her best friend back) good news, the next update won't take as long as i've finished university for the year, so plenty of time for writing! as always, thank you so much for your support, and for sticking with me


	14. where we gonna go from here?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before this chapter i just want to reiterate that this fic is 100% sanvers endgame, despite the inclusion of lucy. her appearance in this fic has been planned from the start and she is very relevant to the plot, as the chapter after this one will show.... again, sorry about the wait, i had a mad rush finishing university and then went on holiday! so this chapter is slightly longer to make up for it

“We have to move.”

Lucy’s voice is a whisper from where she’s lying on her front on the other side of Kara, staring at the spot the men had just been standing.

“Where?” Alex breathes. “Where the hell can we go?”

“We’ll wait until it’s dark,” Maggie says. “Then we get as far away from here as possible and we find the road east.”

Alex shakes her head, turning onto her back as quietly as she can and staring up at the grey expanse of sky above them. She takes a few breaths, clearing her head from the pain, the adrenaline, the barrage of emotions. 

“We have to go now,” she says. “They’re going to send out search parties, they’re not just going to let Kara slip past them.  And they’ll know we won’t have got far."

“But there’s no cover, they’ll spot us as soon as we start moving,” Maggie argues. “You shouldn’t be moving anyway -”

“I’m fine, I’ve had worse,” Alex says dismissively, turning back onto her front and peering through the hedge again to look at the house. She can’t see or hear anyone moving but she doesn’t trust her senses with a head injury.

“So it’s stay here and be found and killed or it’s run for our lives and be spotted and killed,” Lucy says. “Anytime anyone feels like revealing mystery option C, that’d be great.”

“It’s me they’re after,” Kara says suddenly before anyone can say something else. “I agree with Alex, we need to get away, I’m not letting you all put yourselves in danger because of me -”

“Yeah, like we’ve never done that before,” Lucy mutters but Alex silences her with a glare.

“Fine, if we’re going to move let’s just go already,” Maggie says, peering through the hedge.

Alex glances behind them, seeing a small clump of trees they could make it to if luck was on their side; so far, it had been. She hopes that luck isn’t about to run out and come to a very abrupt, violent end.

“We make a break for those trees,” she says, pointing across the field. “They shouldn’t have anything that can reach us once we’re under cover.”

“I didn't see anything in the house,” Maggie says, nodding her agreement. “If we’re quick enough, we’ll make it.”

“This doesn't sound as easy as you're making it out to be,” Kara says, frowning.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park saving you both this time,” Maggie says, grabbing the strap of her pack. 

“If anything about this was easy, we'd be in Boston by now,” Alex agrees.  She peers through the branches one last time. There's no movement and she knows it's now or never. White spots dance in her vision, she needs to get somewhere she can properly assess her injuries before they get worse.

“On three?” Maggie says.

Alex grips Kara’s hand; they've made it this far, she's determined not to let those bastards get another hand on her sister. 

“One,” she says, taking a breath. “Two…”

She's up and running as soon as the word forms on her tongue, scrambling to pick up her pack, feet pounding on hard mud as she sprints, getting dizzier by the second. She has no idea if the voices behind her are those of Lucy or Maggie or the bounty hunters but she doesn't stop to look, focussed on the treeline that gets closer with each stride.

The gunshot rips through the air and she ducks instinctively, glancing back but no one has fallen, the others just a couple of paces behind her as she pulls Kara along with her and then there's another shot, two more shots, a shout and then -

Her knees make hard contact with the ground, and for a moment she thinks she’s been shot, the bullets somehow reaching her. Her hands clench in loose dirt and leaves, her heart pounding as loud as the pain in her head, as loud as the harsh breathing of the others next to her and she hears Kara calling out to her and then the world turns black.

 

***

It's the second time that day she's come to in near complete darkness in an unknown place. Orange light dances at the edge of her vision, voices filtering through, faster and clearer than the first time she had woken up after her body had given out.

“Kara?”

Her throat feels dry. In an instant, Kara’s face comes swimming into view, hands on Alex’s arms, gently pulling her into a sitting position. She blinks away the last few spots of white in her vision, the pain in her head reduced to that of a dull headache. She’s leaning against their packs in the middle of a small clearing, seemingly deep enough to hide them from the bounty hunters who hadn't come looking.

“What the hell happened?” she says, seeing Lucy stoking the fire.

“You passed out as soon as you hit the floor,” Maggie says on her other side. “Good job you're light, Danvers, we had to carry you nearly half a mile.”

“Half a mile?” Alex says, glancing between Maggie and Kara.

“Rough estimate,” Maggie shrugs. “No one followed us, I think we got far enough away. There were more trees past the ones you spotted, and they know we’re armed.”

“Not worth the risk,” Alex says, gripping Kara’s hand tighter.

“Here,” Lucy says, holding what looks like gauze from the first aid kit and a bottle of water. “Turn around so I can see the back of your head.”

“I'm fine -”

“You passed out,” Maggie says. “Lucy needs to patch you up. Kara and I are going to get more wood, we’re not moving from here until you're okay. No arguments”

Maggie squeezes her knee, and Alex looks away; she can't help but think about how the last real conversation between them had been more of an argument, a shouting match. One where she had told Maggie, without believing it, that it would be easier if Maggie was gone. She knew her words had cut deep, she knew that, even if she hadn't said, Maggie had believed that Alex had wanted her gone. And still she had come back to save their lives.

“Maggie?” she calls as Kara and Maggie step over the packs into the trees and she turns back. “Thank you for saving us.”

“Anytime,” Maggie says, smiling softly, her arms hugging herself. “I wouldn't leave you behind. Either of you,” she adds. 

“Still…” Alex says, trying to find the words. It doesn’t feel like enough. She wants to apologise, she needs to apologise for what she had said before they had been taken; but she was still hurt, she wasn’t sure if it would ever stop hurting until Maggie was honest with her, one way or another. But she wasn't the only one here who was wounded by words.

“Thank you,” she says again.

Maggie holds her gaze for a fleeting second before she’s swallowed by the darkness, followed by Kara. She stares at the space where Maggie was, a small lump in her throat; she doesn't know what she'd have done if she had never got the chance to speak to or even see Maggie again. Dying knowing she couldn't save Maggie or save Kara, wasn't something she ever wanted to get so close to again.

“Okay, Alex, spill.”

She jumps at the sound of Lucy’s voice, nowhere near used to hearing it after a year apart.

“What d’you mean?” she says, shifting and lowering her head so Lucy can get a good look at the deep gash there from where the gun had hit.

“What was that between you and Maggie just now?” Lucy says, pouring a small amount of water onto the gauze. 

“It wasn't anything,” Alex huffs. “She saved our lives, she's saved them more than once actually. She deserves a bit of gratitude.” She hisses when Lucy touches the cut, flinching. “Can we just not talk about it, please?”

“Well, I like her,” Lucy says. “She's… plucky.”

“Plucky?” Alex snorts.

“Sure, she didn't give up on you two,” Lucy says and then pauses. “She told me how she found you both, in Nebraska. How you all travelled together, what happened with the other bounty hunters… it's impressive. And, hey, she saved my life. That's good enough to earn my trust.”

Alex laughs softly. She can only imagine that conversation between Lucy and Maggie while she had been out of it. She  _ never  _ thought she would have to imagine a conversation between the two, resigned to the fact she would never see Lucy again.

“I can't believe it's you,” Alex blurts out, wincing as Lucy touches the cut again. “How… just  _ how _ , Luce?”

Lucy’s movements still for a moment. 

“Luck?” she says. “Fate, whatever. You found me, that's good enough, right?”

Alex turns her head but Lucy pushes it back.

“No, it's not,” Alex says. “How did you get there? How… you were in DC and then you're in some basement in Ohio.”

“It's the apocalypse, Alex,” Lucy says. “And just as we’re not talking about Maggie, we’re not talking about this. Not today.”

The air is thick with tension after that, the soft cracks from the fire the only sounds and the occasional hiss from Alex as Lucy finishes cleaning the wound.

“It's not as big as you think,” Lucy says finally. “There's not many people left, not many that are wandering around anyway. But I guess I should’ve known you and Kara would be alive and roaming the wilds.”

She tries to pass it off as a joke but Alex hears the slight awe in Lucy’s tone. She wonders how long Lucy had been held captive that she had just given up hope of anyone finding her. But if Lucy didn't want to talk about it today, they wouldn't.

“I'm sorry, Alex,” Lucy says as Alex turns back around, confused until Lucy says, “about Kara, about… everything. She told me you're going to Boston.”

Alex nods, picking the dirt out from under her nails. She knows tomorrow their journey starts again, to save Kara. She feels like she’s just got her sister back, she feels  _ safe _ but she knows that nothing will really be okay until she gets Kara somewhere where there’s a cure. Maybe even then they won’t be completely safe.

“Do you think there's something there?” Alex says.

“Do you?” Lucy says and smiles when Alex nods firmly. “That's what made you such a good agent. You never gave up the fight for your sister.”

“I never will,” Alex says, staring into the flames, staying silent while Lucy patched her head up, taking measured breaths as she fights through the pain. Eventually, Lucy kneels back on her ankles, tossing the bloody gauze aside, handing Alex the bottle of water as she shifts around to face the fire, shoulder to shoulder with her friend.

“Can I ask you something?” Lucy says after a while, warming her hands against the flames and Alex nods, waiting until finally Lucy speaks again. “I… I’d like to come with you, to Boston.”

“That wasn't a question,” Alex smirks, then nudges her shoulder. “Come on, you really think we’d do this without you now we found you again? Even if it's just luck, fate or whatever. You're stuck with us now and there's no way we're letting you go again.”

It's then Alex realises just how tired Lucy looks, weary and knocked down and hollow. She’s burning to ask what’s happened in the year since Lucy had left, in the months after the end of the world. But Lucy was right; not today.

“We can talk tomorrow,” Alex says. “Or whenever you’re ready.”

Even though Lucy hasn’t said anything yet, Alex can tell she’s changed. They all have.

 

***

Maggie doesn’t let them stray too far from the clearing, keeping the fire in view, shadows flickering across the forest floor as they kick through leaves to find dry wood. She’s glad for the silence; it gives her time to process everything that’s happened, from the gas station to the basement of the house to the forest.

It feels like she’s aged ten years in one day. She hasn’t slept in what feels like forever and it didn’t seem like only hours ago that she was about to die on the forecourt of an abandoned gas station. And now here she was, searching for wood with Kara to fuel a fire Alex and their long lost friend Lucy were keeping alight. 

She had gone to save Alex and Kara, she would never have given up the fight for them. And she had won, she had pulled them out alive and that was more than enough. And somehow she had saved someone else in the process, someone who, after only one conversation with, Maggie knew was just as loyal and honest and brave as the Danvers sisters.

Lucy had sat there in quiet contemplation as Maggie had recounted the tale of how she had met Alex and Kara, and everything from that point on. And then, after she was all talked out, her throat feeling dry, Lucy had said in a voice so quiet it almost hadn’t carried over the flames, “thank you for saving my life” and all Maggie could do was nod. 

“You were right with what you told me at the gas station,” Kara says, her voice making Maggie jump out of her thoughts. 

“About what?”

“That you’d come back for us,” Kara says, bending down to pick up some dry wood. “I kept telling myself, I kept telling Lucy in that basement that you would find us, that you’d come back. I knew you wouldn’t give up. I… I’m just so glad you found us again.”

“For someone who was so sure I would find you, you sound surprised,” Maggie says, but apparently this was the wrong thing to say as when Kara looks up, her eyes are glazed with tears. “Hey, it’s okay, I'm sorry,” Maggie says, hands reaching out to touch Kara, drawing back at the last moment. “I found you, that’s what matters. I wasn't going to give up so easily.”

“I was so scared,” Kara admits. “I thought maybe… maybe you weren't coming, after what Alex had said about not wanting you with us… I thought you’d left or they'd  _ killed _ you.”

Maggie’s smile falters; she knows she came too close to that end. She can barely remember how it happened, it feels like such a blur of movement all condensed into one frame of motion. 

“But they didn't,” Maggie says. “It's going to take more than a bounty hunter to finish me off. And even if Alex had meant what she said, and I know she didn't, I wasn’t just going to leave you both behind. I'll always find you, Kara. You and Alex, I'm here for you both, I promise.”

The wood clatters to the floor as Maggie is engulfed in a hug that nearly knocks her off her feet. Her limbs stay locked out of shock, and finally she can move her arms to wrap around Kara when she grips the back of Maggie’s shirt as though she's desperate not to let go.

“It's okay, it's okay,” Maggie whispers, her voice slightly hoarse, blinking back the tears. 

She had no idea her return meant this much to Kara; it had seemed like the simplest thing in the world for her, that _of_ _course_ she was going to fight for her and Alex, despite what had been said. The alternative had not even crossed her mind. She wonders how many times Kara has been left for this to come as a shock and that just makes her tighten her hold on the younger Danvers sister.

Kara sniffs as she steps back, looking down at the dirt. 

“Sorry, I…”

“You don’t need to apologise, Kara,” Maggie says softly.

“It's just… Alex and I only had each other for a long time when all this started,” she says, gesturing around the ash grey trees. “Ever since I came to Earth, she was always the one constant, someone I could depend on. She inspired me to be the best I could be, without her there wouldn't have  _ been _ a Supergirl.”

Maggie just nods, entirely unsure how to respond.

“And then I lost everything again,” Kara says, blinking up at the sky. “Except for her. And we fought for each other and now… well, you fight for her too. For us.”

“I’ll always fight for you,” Maggie says.

Kara’s smile nearly breaks her heart. She may never have been in National City, but she had seen just how much hope Supergirl had inspired in people. As someone who has lost so much, for Kara to be so effortlessly kind and humble is astonishing. Maggie is more than proud to fight for Kara and for Alex.

She bends down the pick up the wood she had dropped and just as she’s turning to head back to the clearing where Alex and Lucy are, Kara’s voice stops her.

“You like her, don't you?” she says and Maggie freezes. “I can tell, the way you talk about her. How hurt you were when she said what she did in that gas station. It doesn't take superpowers to see it.”

Maggie exhales a laugh, not turning around. She knows the lie is going to be seen behind her eyes if she does.

“I don't know where you got that from,” she says, trying not to let her voice shake.

“I know she likes you,” Kara says. “The way she looks at you, it's obvious. And the way you look at her.” 

“You're wrong,” Maggie says quickly. 

She can't deal with this now. She's only just got Alex  _ back _ , she can’t even begin to think like that yet, too busy processing just how she had managed to not lose Alex this time. She can't think like that anymore because the world they live in, the world she has fallen for Alex in is cruel and dangerous and sooner or later, maybe she won't be able to save Alex a second time. 

“Even if I did, we don't have time for that kind of stuff.”

“We never have time,” Kara says. “There's never a perfect time. You just have to make the best of what time you have. It's what Lucy once told me.”

“Yeah, well... it doesn't matter,” Maggie says, although the words feel like a stab to her chest, but the lie is easier than admitting the truth she knows cannot happen in this world, in this life. “Nothing's going to happen.”

And before Kara can ask her to turn around and say it to her face, Maggie tightens her grip on the wood in her arms and makes her way back to the clearing.

Of course Kara is right about her feelings towards Alex. That night in the bunker under the influence of alcohol and elation at  _ finally _ some good luck had been proof enough. And still Maggie had backed out. She ignored the voice in her head that was telling her to stop being selfish and seize the chance being given to her in a world where nothing but death and misery existed. But she could not love and lose again. She wouldn't survive it.

She pauses when she reaches the clearing; she knows their argument in the abandoned gas station isn’t over and some of the things Alex had said still stung. But it's nothing she can face tonight. It’s not something she wants to face  _ ever _ . But a time would come where she had to and she wasn’t run away, not this time.

“We were just about to send out a search party,” Alex says, her laugh at something Lucy had said trailing off as she drops the wood by the fire. “Worried you’d got lost.”

Maggie's laugh is empty as she kneels down beside Alex and pushes a log onto the fire, blowing into the red ash, casting sparks into flames that catch hold of the wood. She leans back against her pack, drawing her knees to her chest, very aware of Alex’s eyes on her. Only hours ago had they been arguing and now they were together again after Maggie had saved them all, passing from harsh anger to hushed, almost awe-filled gratitude in such a short space of time. 

“So,” she says, looking at Alex, knowing she will understand the other meaning behind her words. “Where do we go from here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to all those who have supported me, and for your wonderful comments/kudos! hmu @llucylane on tumblr if you wanna chat about any of my fics, i love hearing your views and own personal thoughts about them! have a great week everyone :)


	15. let the truth sting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i left this so long, but holiday, writers block, general stress as i prepare to move country... big shoutout to @karolsens on tumblr for helping me and motivating me! they're the best. enjoy everyone!

After a fitful night’s rest, Alex feels her injury is manageable enough for them to start moving again. She doesn’t give them much of a choice, point blank refusing to stay put any longer and the others don’t put up much of a fight. Her own exhaustion is reflected back at her in the faces of the other three. Lucy looks even worse, ragged, far from the put together appearance she had always shown. She’s still adjusting to being out in the open again, flinching every time someone speaks as if she’s not used to the sound of other voices, let alone the voices of two people she had never expected to see again. 

There would be time later for them to sit down and talk about what hell they had gone through, talk about what’s been plaguing them. For now, Alex’s priority is to get them on the road back East, somewhere safer. The road would leave them exposed, vulnerable, but staying undercover would just get them lost. After the chaos of the past couple of days, returning to their route offers a bittersweet sense of familiarity. 

They walk in silence through the woods, the unspoken agreement to leave what needs to be said for a later time hanging in the air, boots crunching over dry leaves until suddenly their feet start to sink into damp ground as they reach a small creek. They pause only for a moment, stopping to refill water bottles and adding precious drops of iodine from the bottle Alex had found in the bunker what seems a lifetime ago.

Alex half expects Maggie to drop back and try to talk to her as it seemed she had wanted to all throughout the night. Alex had stirred from her restless slumber to see Maggie wide awake, watching her, as if she was so afraid of Alex and Kara disappearing again if she closed her eyes. But instead of speaking, she had just shuffled down under the blankets, turning back to look at the fire. 

“How far out of the way do you think we’ve come?” Kara asks, breaking the silence in a whisper to Alex as she leads the way through the trees. 

Alex just shakes her head in answer. She has no idea if they’re going east at all. She’s half focussed on trying to find the road but she’s still on high alert for danger, more so than usual, nerves tingling at the possibility of being found again. 

Just when she’s starting to consider the possibility that they’re going in circles, she spots the road only a short way ahead down the bank of the forest through the trees. She stops, her head pounding again, her movements having become more sluggish the further they had walked. She puts it down to sheer exhaustion, but then when she gingerly touches the wound, her fingers come away spotted with blood. 

She blinks away the pain, leaning against a tree trunk, trying to stop the weak feeling in her knees. She fumbles in the inside of her coat pocket for the remnants of a road map she had taken from the saddlebag of her old bike.

She kneels on the dry leaves, laying the map out. Maggie joins her, Lucy standing shoulder to shoulder with Kara, watching intently, looking even more exhausted than she had done when they had found her. 

“Any idea where we are?” Maggie asks, watching as Alex rubs a hand over her eyes. “We’ve got to still be in Ohio, right? There’s no way we’ve backtracked that much.”

“We’re still in Ohio,” Lucy says and they all look at her as she kneels down beside the map, sounding far more sure than Alex feels.

“How can you be sure?” Maggie asks. 

Lucy doesn’t say anything, just points to Lake Erie, tracing her finger around the shoreline.

“When they caught us and drove us back to the house, I heard them mention the lake,” Lucy says. 

Alex glances between Kara and Maggie, knows that they’re all thinking the same thing; Lucy hadn’t been alone when she had been taken. Alex wonders if she had known the people she had been caught with or if she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Lucy had been alone when she was caught, that meant she hadn’t had anyone fighting for her the way Maggie had fought to find Alex and Kara. The alternative sat no easier with Alex; she knows that Lucy had experienced loss before as a soldier, but in a world like this, loss was even harder to handle when there was so little to hold on to. 

“I was blindfolded so I couldn’t be sure, but the way they were talking about it made it seem like we were close,” Lucy continues. “I tried tracking the movement of the truck but it was impossible. The only thing I’m sure about is that the house has to be close to the lake, they didn’t drive too far to get back and Maggie’s right, we haven’t backtracked far enough.”

Alex traces a line from somewhere near the top of Ohio and up towards Lake Erie, sure they must be close by if Lucy was right. 

“We should head for the lake,” Alex says. “We can use road signs and follow the shoreline east from there.” 

“I could be wrong,” Lucy says. “It’s just what I heard.”

“Well, it’s more than what we’ve got,” Alex says, folding the map carefully and putting it back into her pocket. “Let’s get back on the road, see if we’re on the right track.”

She goes to stand too quickly, her head swimming and she sinks back to her knees. She tries to pass it off as just a stumble but she catches Maggie’s frown as she holds out her hand for Alex to take. A flash of spite crosses Alex’s mind, wanting to be stubborn and not take it, but she grips Maggie’s wrist anyway and hauls herself to her feet, letting go as soon as she’s up.

“Maybe we should rest for a moment,” Maggie says, still watching Alex cautiously. “You’re still wounded, we’ve been walking for hours -”

“I’m fine,” Alex says shortly, cutting her off, adjusting the strap on her shoulder. She knows she’s far from fine right now, but they need to get somewhere safer before she can stop and rest. “Let’s just keep moving.”

 

***

Lucy takes the lead from Alex, the four of them walking in single file along the road. Kara acts as a buffer between Alex and Maggie, separating the two, prolonging the inevitable. With each step the burning desire to just say something to Maggie grows and Alex isn’t sure how long she can hold it at bay, it feels corrosive, eating away at her insides.

There’s so much she has to say, so much she needs to apologise for, so much that needs answering. And it’s the same with Lucy too, with whatever she’s holding onto, whatever dark thoughts are plaguing her. She leads them onto a highway at the crest of which they can see the lake in the distance. They’re all just waiting for the right moment. 

Hours later, they come across a ghost town, a thin layer of ash settled on the rooftops of the houses, the windows that haven’t been smashed streaked with dirt and rain. Alex blinks the ash out of her eyes when a soft breeze filters through the street, scattering ash into the air, across the tarmac and their boots.

It causes Kara to start coughing again and she tries to cover it up and brush it off but then she can’t stop, nearly doubled over with the force at which the coughs are being driven from her lungs.

“We need to stop,” Alex says, refusing to let them go on any longer when Kara is clearly too weak to do so without resting.

“We can’t stay here, we might not be alone,” Maggie starts but then Kara has another coughing fit, leaning into Alex’s side. 

“I don’t care, we’re not carrying on,” Alex says, putting an arm around Kara’s shoulder. “Save our lives again if you have to, but unless you’ve got a better idea, we’re staying.”

Maggie silently concedes; she’s been around them long enough to know that when Alex has made her mind up about something, she will very rarely back down, especially when it comes to Kara.

“If anyone else is here, they would’ve heard the coughing,” Lucy says, sounding as tired as Alex feels. 

They stumble into one of the houses, Alex leading Kara over to a moth-eaten, slightly damp, couch, rubbing small circles on her back. When the coughing subsides, Alex kneels in front of her, rummaging through her pack and extracting a bottle of water, gently pushing on Kara’s shoulder so she sits up and hands her the water.

She barely registers the other two moving around, completely focussed on Kara, hand resting on her knee. She’s reminded of the true danger in the world; Kara is still infected by the virus, she’s still  _ dying _ . Alex can save her from bounty hunters. They’re a known quantity, she has a way of dealing with them. The virus is a completely different matter, almost totally out of her hands; the most she can do is keep Kara alive until they get Boston and she’s not sure how much longer she can shut out the reality of the possibility that they might not get there in time.

“I’m sorry,” Kara says, her voice scratchy and Alex just squeezes her knee, taking back the water bottle. “I could have carried on, we -”

“No, no you couldn’t,” Alex says, standing on shaking legs and kissing the top of Kara’s head. “I wouldn’t have let you.”

“Neither could you,” comes Lucy’s voice from behind her. “Were you planning to tell us that your head was bleeding again or were you just going to be stubborn about it as usual?”

Alex bristles at her words, ignores the look she gets from Kara and turns to face Lucy who has her arms folded, Maggie standing a little way to the side, leaning on the door jamb, glancing between the two.

“It’s just superficial,” Alex says quickly. “I feel fine.”

“Sure, that’s why you could barely stand earlier,” Maggie says quietly from the door, fixing Alex with a stare. “You can’t keep doing this, Alex. How are you supposed to protect Kara like you always say you will when you can’t look after yourself?”

“Because I’m not the one with a virus, the only cure for which is halfway across the country,” Alex says bluntly.

“You should have said something,” Kara says but Alex isn’t listening, instead watching the way a shadow seems to cross Lucy’s face at the mention of the virus and an uneasy feeling forms in Alex’s gut, blindsiding her and before she can even stop herself, before she can convince herself she had made it all up, her instincts propel the words out of her mouth.

“Something you want to say?” Alex says but this time Lucy meets her eyes, trying to give the impression of indifference, like she hasn’t just given everything away with one look. “What is it? What do you know?”

“Nothing, I -”

“Don’t give me that crap,” Alex snaps, all patience lost, and she starts to pull out blankets from her and Kara’s packs to keep them warm against the breeze coming through the smashed window. She hands one to Kara, and throws the other one at Lucy who catches it, confused. “We’re staying here until Kara can move again. And we’re going to talk. All of us,” she adds, looking towards Maggie. “None of us have the time to hide behind secrets and lies, I won’t do it anymore, not when we almost just died! So,” she says, sitting down next to Kara on the couch and looking at Lucy. “Start talking.”

Lucy doesn’t seem to know where to look. She glances back at Maggie who looks equally as tense, before she steps past Lucy, dragging her pack by the strap and sits down on the other couch, staring at her hands. And still, Lucy just stands there, knuckles white from gripping the blanket, the dark bruising on her cheek looking even worse in the darkening room.

“It was Cadmus.”

And there it is. 

She doesn’t even need to ask what  _ it _ was. Alex feels like she’s just been punched in the gut, the wind knocked out of her. A bitingly cold chill trickles down her back, floods through her body like ice water, freezing her to her core.

The worst part is that it isn’t the shock that is making her feel this way. No, she expected it from Cadmus. It’s the fact that the virus had not been an accident, as she had first thought. It meant was that Cadmus, the people who had captured her father, had deliberately released a virus into the atmosphere, a virus meant to kill, to wipe out all alien life on Earth including her sister. 

And to Alex, that was far worse than the end of the world. The apocalypse, she could deal with, the end of life as she knew it had vanished but she would have, somehow, continued. Cadmus releasing a virus that had harmed her sister and others like her? The deliberate act, the fact that this was a very human creation, made her  _ furious _ . Even still in shock, she doesn’t know how she’s going to come back from this. Not when her sister, the only family she had left, had been caught in the calculated, cruel, cold intention to destroy alien life.

“What’s Cadmus?”

Alex had almost forgotten Maggie was there, hadn’t even registered Kara’s hand clutching hers. She squeezes her sister’s hand as hard as she can. 

“They were an anti-alien organisation,” Lucy says in answer to Maggie’s question. “Linked to the government and then went rogue, experimenting on aliens and humans alike to try and end what they saw as the biggest threat to Earth’s security.”

“Aliens?” Maggie asks, eyes blown wide and Lucy nods.

“Whatever they were working on before the world ended has been their only success,” Lucy says bitterly. “They had set up sleeper cells of the virus all over the country, completely undetected by us.”

A lump the size of her fist rises in Alex’s throat. How the hell could they have missed that? It was her job, her  _ mission  _ to do whatever it took to stop Cadmus after what they had done to her father but she hadn’t stopped them in time.

“I think even if the world hadn’t ended, they were planning to use it,” Lucy says.

“But then they had the perfect cover,” Alex says, staring ahead of her without really seeing. “They could release the virus and blame it on the end of the world like everyone else. We all did it, we all thought…”

She trails off, swallowing the lump in her throat, her body vibrating with seething rage. She wants to scream, cry, hit something, spend the rest of life hunting down the people behind Cadmus. She wouldn’t fail this time, she wouldn’t let them win. 

“Humans first,” Maggie whispers, echoing the words she had spoken to the bounty hunter all that time ago by the tunnel. “They killed whoever they believed to be inferior, pretending it was a natural virus, so humans could focus on saving themselves.”

Lucy nods, still looking at the ground, her jaw clenched.

“I was assigned to lead a taskforce in Washington to try and find out what Cadmus was planning once it split from the government,” Lucy says and it all sinks in as to why she looks despondent and almost guilty. “We found out too late. Cadmus had gone underground and the world was… the world  _ ended _ . It was chaos, for everyone, you don’t…”

“You couldn’t have stopped this,” Kara says, her voice a fierce whisper. “None of us could, not the government or the DEO. We never saw this coming, we couldn’t have. No one is to blame but Cadmus.”

For the first time since she’d dropped the bombshell, Lucy looks up at Kara, green eyes sparkling with tears. Alex knows the feeling, she was sure if she could read minds she would see similar thoughts of failure to those racing through her own head right now.

“But if this is true -”

“It is.”

“Okay, but the virus didn't just kill aliens,” Maggie continues. “Humans died too, we got infected.”

Lucy starts pacing, discarding the blanket on the floor, the thumb of her right hand pressing into her left palm. 

“They messed up the formula,” she says. “Or it wasn't finished, either way, it didn't matter to them, they got what they wanted. Human casualties were just collateral damage.”

“They didn't get exactly what they wanted,” Alex says. “There are still aliens out there, they’re being rounded up by the bounty hunters.”

“Exactly, it means they ran out of time to perfect it,” Lucy says. “If they’d had a few more months, they might have succeeded. Like you said, they had the perfect cover. They took their chances.”

Alex extracts her arm from between her and Kara, putting it around Kara’s shaking shoulders, pulling her close. Kara redoubles her grip on Alex’s hand, the only thing that’s grounding Alex, stopping her from falling over the edge of a cliff, sending her spiralling down, because this was all too much.

“I’m so sorry.”

This is a side to Lucy Alex has never seen before. The complete despair in her voice, the way it comes out as a croak, like she too can’t deal with the pain of having to admit this to three people who have had their lives uprooted and changed forever by Cadmus’ plan. It’s like she’s trying to excuse herself from the blame, show her remorse for something she had never had any hand in, an organisation she had helped try to take down alongside Alex and Kara and all their friends they had lost.

“Lucy, it’s not your fault,” Kara says, finding her voice again. “You were right to tell us.”

Alex silently agrees; better to know now than to be kept in the dark. The longer Lucy had left it before telling them, the more it would have hurt, and it stung enough as it was. Lucy brushes a hand against her cheek and Alex realises not all of this is coming from her remorse, but rather just the relief of getting it all out in the open. Lucy had never believed in holding back the truth, she had told Kara as much when she had revealed she was Supergirl.

Lucy clears her throat, nodding, looking around the room at nothing in particular. Kara’s hand slipping from Alex’s as she stands and takes a step towards Lucy, her hands out in front of her as if to reach for Lucy, but the shorter woman takes a step back.

“Lucy…”

“I’m fine,” Lucy says, and now she’s back to the stoic Major Lane, guarded and cold. “I just… I need some air.”

Before any of them can stop her, she turns on her heel and walks out of the room, the others waiting and listening as the door closes with a loud snap behind Lucy, her shadow passing in front of the window.

“One of us should go make sure she’s okay, she shouldn’t be out there alone,” Maggie says, half-rising out of her seat but Kara beats her to it, already moving, the slam of the door casting the room back into tense silence. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't worry, maggie and alex's big talk is coming soon, i promise. i'm not sure when i will next get a chance to update in the next week, i'm moving out and back home, got friends visiting but i will try and make the time to write! thank you for all your wonderful comments and support, i will try to be back as soon as i can! have a great week everyone :)


	16. things we said today

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the wait, i've been moving back home so i've been pretty busy. kinda nervous about this chapter because it does focus on kara and lucy and the cadmus story a fair bit, but there are some Huge moments for alex and maggie coming up. i just need to set it up and develop the plot after last chapter! so, i hope you stick with me on this!

The rush of cold air from the door opening and closing rustles Alex’s hair, sending a shiver down her spine. Kara’s silhouette passes in front of the window, following Lucy as she calls her name. She’s desperate to go after them but she’s so overwhelmed that she doesn’t think she can find the energy. Besides, she’s sure Kara is the better person to go and talk to Lucy, her more calming presence would suit the situation better.

She stands anyway, pacing, trying to calm the storm in her mind. She’s so full of rage that she doesn’t know what to do with herself, doesn’t know what to do with her hands but she just wants to find every remaining Cadmus lackey, every bounty hunter and beat them bloody without worrying about the consequences. 

Cadmus had taken her father, they had plotted numerous times to take over the world and rid it of all alien life. And they had come  _ so close _ to taking her sister as well. If Kara had been a victim of the virus, Alex doesn’t know what she would have done. She doesn’t even want to think about it. Cadmus was the reason for her life becoming an arduous journey across the country, trying to save her sister. And she would, her love for Kara far outweighing the hatred for Cadmus, driving her onwards to save her.

Alex almost forgets that Maggie is sitting in the room still. Almost, if it wasn’t for the way she watches Alex every time she turns back around as she paces.

“Are you okay?”

Alex just exhales a shaky laugh in reply, suddenly stopping, touching the tips of her fingers to her lips, not looking at Maggie but rather somewhere in the middle distance between them.

“Anti-alien group tried to wipe out all non-human life from the face of the earth, including my sister, so….” She laughs again. “You tell me.”

“I’m so sorry, Alex,” Maggie says. 

“I should have known,” Alex says as she resumes her pacing. “Not that it was Cadmus, that’s something else entirely. But I spent my life,  _ dedicated  _ it, to protecting Kara from any kind of threat, human or alien, so after everything I’ve seen, it shouldn’t be a shock that this was all planned.”

“It’s not your fault you didn’t realise,” Maggie says and Alex sighs, shaking her head. “Okay, look at it this way. If you had known it was deliberate, would you have been able to stop them?”

Alex turns back to face her.

“I could have tried,” she says, but she doesn’t believe it for a second.

She would have tried, but she wouldn’t have gotten far at all, not with everything else that was going on around her, the fires, the earthquakes, the destruction of the planet. Even she couldn’t have found the time to hunt down whoever had released the virus, not when her friends and Kara were in so much danger.

“No one knew,” Maggie said. “Even if it’s clear now… you can’t blame yourself for something that you had no control over. And you did your job, you saved Kara, you got her away from the city… and you’re still trying to save her, so Cadmus aren’t winning this time.”

When Maggie is saying things like this, drawing Alex away from her constant fear of failure, away from her belief that no matter how hard she tries to protect Kara it will never be good enough, it would be easy to just forget everything that happened before their kidnapping. 

The fact that it could be so easy to move on is the exact reason why she can’t. Whatever crescendo her feelings have been building towards, the fact that she could wipe the slate clean with Maggie proves now, more than ever, that what she feels towards her is completely unlike anything she has felt before. She doesn’t move on quickly, she holds grudges, she’s stubborn. And in one fell swoop, Maggie has made Alex reevaluate everything she thought she knew about her own convictions, her own personality.

The anger almost didn’t seem to matter anymore. The apologies almost didn’t need to be said. Almost. 

They lapse back into a tense silence. Alex finally stops pacing, sinking back down onto the sagging couch. The stage is set for them to talk, Kara and Lucy gone, and apparently Maggie thinks the same, her mouth half open, ready to dive into it. 

But Alex can’t. Not now, not today. Her emotions are shot, she’s devastated and she can’t handle another heavy emotional blow. She  _ wants  _ to be able to handle it, but she’s spent enough of her life trying to remain strong and face her fears. Just this once, she should be allowed to back down, even just for one day.

“So,” she says, interrupting Maggie before she can even say a word. “How did you manage to escape?”

 

***

“Lucy!”

Kara stumbles down the doorstep, the wind slamming the door closed and whipping her hair around her face.

“Lucy, wait!”

Lucy’s nearly two houses away and she stops the second time Kara calls her name. She only turns around when Kara moves in front of her, bending her knees to look Lucy in the eye.

“Where are you going?” Kara asks her.

Lucy looks up, green eyes full of guilt and glistening with unshed tears. 

“Nowhere, I just… I had to get out of there, I couldn’t stand being in that room after what I told you, I…” 

Kara rests a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, squeezing it with a strength that once upon a time would have been quite painful.

“I’m fine,” Lucy says. “Go back inside where it’s warmer.”

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Kara says. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

Kara expects Lucy to argue. She could be just as stubborn, if not more so, than Alex sometimes when they used to work together. What she doesn’t expect is for Lucy to just nod and sit down on the step of the house they’re standing in front of. Kara brushes ash off the concrete and joins her, pulling her knees close to her chest.

“I had to tell you,” Lucy says. “I couldn’t keep it inside any longer, someone had to know.”

“It’s okay,” Kara says and then sighs. “Well, no, it’s not. It’s… horrible. They were trying to kill every single alien on this planet and they almost succeeded. But it’s good you told us.”

Lucy says nothing, staring across the road, watching as the ash gets blown up into the sky, settling like snow on window frames and broken drainpipes. Kara has never seen her like this before and she’s determined to quell the storm inside Lucy’s head.

“You’ve given us the best information we could have hoped for,” Kara says and Lucy turns her head, eyes wide, looking at Kara incredulously.

“How is that possibly good information?” Lucy says with a harsh laugh.

“Well, if the virus affects humans as well, that has to mean there’s some kind of cure,” Kara says earnestly. “Cadmus wouldn’t risk killing the race they wanted to keep alive, even if they thought the virus would work. And then they released it too soon and it wasn’t finished, they must have known it wouldn’t just kill aliens.”

“Or maybe humans were just necessary collateral damage,” Lucy says.

“Or maybe Cadmus created a cure like a failsafe,” Kara argues. “They wanted to be the ones to survive. They couldn’t have released a cure across the country, it would have been given to everyone, including aliens.”

“So they kept it for themselves and those closest to them,” Lucy finishes, catching on to what Kara is saying. “Which could mean…”

“Somewhere out there is a cure,” Kara says. “Maybe the rumours are true, this isn’t just some futile attempt. Where we’re going, there could be a cure.”

“Or it could be a trap,” Lucy counters. “A way of luring aliens in and… finishing the job.”

Kara’s blood runs cold at the idea. She knows Lucy is only trying to be realistic, but still, the lack of shared optimism is rapidly making Kara not believe it herself. But she has to. She  _ wants  _ to believe that she can survive this, after everything else she’s been through… 

She had thought at the start, when Alex had confirmed she had the virus, that maybe there was no hope. Alex didn’t have any idea where to start saving her, and Kara trusted Alex’s judgement more than anyone’s. But Alex had persisted, they both had, and through the rage and the storm and the destruction, they had fought their way to the road.

And almost every day since then, the thought that at any moment she would be reunited with her mother and father faded, replaced with the belief that they would find the rumoured cure. And now Lucy has told them all about Cadmus, the spark of hope has been fanned into an all-consuming fire. Kara just wishes Lucy was seeing this the same way, rather than still be feeling guilty about dropping the bombshell.

“What happened to you, Lucy?” Kara asks sadly. “You always used to choose to believe in the good, you were always an optimist. You saw the best side in any situation.”

“I was trapped in a basement, in the dark, on my own, for God knows how long,” Lucy says, not vindictively, but rather she sounds empty, emotionless. “Alone. I was  _ alone _ , Kara. For all that time. You stop thinking that you can be saved and you start losing hope.”

Kara stares at Lucy as she stares into space, eyes glazed over. Slowly, she moves her hand to cover Lucy’s where she’s white-knuckling the cracked concrete step. She feels a flinch under her hand but she holds fast. She’s never going to let Lucy feel alone again.

“Did you try to escape?” Kara finds herself asking and a shadow crosses Lucy’s face.

“I wouldn’t have been able to take down all those men by myself,” Lucy says with a disinterested shrug but Kara can see right through her.

“Lucy, I know you,” she says. “You could have stopped those men with your bare hands. You could have tried to escape and you’d have succeeded.”

“How can you possibly be sure of that?” Lucy says, her laugh short, biting, pulling her hand out from under Kara’s. “And why do you care? If I’d left, you wouldn’t have found me again. I’d have gone the rest of my life, however long or short it would have been, wondering if somewhere out there my friends were still fighting, too.”

Kara has no answers for her; she knows the feeling all too well. Every night, she lies there and she thinks about them. James, Winn, J’onn, Clark and Lucy, her family. She’s torn, conflicted, because of course she wishes Lucy had gotten out of there faster, hadn’t had to endure weeks, months, of hell. But then there’s another part of her, screaming inside her head, which is so grateful that Lucy stayed.

“I knew you were still alive,” Kara says. “I never thought I’d see you again, but I knew you were out here, fighting. Because I  _ know you _ . I know what you’re capable of, the strength you have inside of you. You’re a survivor, a soldier.”

“I was,” Lucy corrects her, standing up but not walking away, her back facing Kara.

“And I  _ was  _ Supergirl,” Kara counters. “I don’t have my powers anymore, but I can still make a difference, I can still  _ fight _ , just as hard as you or Alex or Maggie. I’m fighting because I believe in the one last piece of hope left, that somehow…” She pauses, taking a deep breath and swallowing back the cough threatening to escape from her lungs. “Somehow, I’ll survive. Just because I’m no longer a hero, doesn’t mean I have to stop fighting. You still have everything it took for you to become a soldier, even if you’re not one anymore. You just have to find that piece of you again. You don’t need superpowers to make a stand, Lucy, you’re  _ proof  _ of that.”

Heavy, lingering silence washes over the street. Kara can’t even hear the wind anymore, she can’t hear any movement. And still, Lucy just stands there, making no indication that she’s even heard Kara. She stands, taking a step forward so she’s stood at Lucy’s shoulder.  

“You don’t get it, you’re missing something,” Lucy says, shaking her head. “It’s not your fault, it’s… listen, when I was a soldier, when I worked for the DEO, I fought for something.”

Kara goes to rest a hand on her shoulder, but then Lucy turns around.

“I was fighting for other people, fighting to keep the city, my agents, safe. Fighting to keep  _ you _ safe,” she says. “And then everything changed and everyone started to fight for themselves or the people they loved or even against each other.”

She can see where this is going before Lucy even says another word and her heart splinters.

“I didn’t have that,” Lucy says, her voice breaking. “I thought I’d lost everyone worth fighting for, so when they caught me I just… I stopped fighting. There was no one left to fight for. I’d have escaped, and for what?”

“If you need something to fight for, if that’s what you really need, then we’re here,” Kara says. “You can fight with us, make a stand against Cadmus because they’re not winning this, Lucy, they’re not… they’re not taking me, I’m not falling to them.”

Lucy takes a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes finally meeting Kara’s rather than looking just beyond her, as though she’s scared of whatever truth lies behind her eyes.

“I’m so glad you’re alive.”

Up until this moment, Kara has never seen Lucy cry. In fact, she doesn’t think she has ever seen anyone break quite so quickly as Lucy does. It’s shocking, the way she crumbles into Kara, her hands limp by her side and Kara worries that if she lets go of her, Lucy would just sink to the floor.

Even when the sobbing stops, Kara doesn’t dare let go. This moment, the here and now, is what matters. Just holding on, like they all were so desperately trying to do. Holding on to someone she thought she had lost. It feels like hours, but it’s probably just mere seconds.

“Let’s go back inside.”

 

***

“I didn't look back,” Maggie finishes her tale, staring at her hands. “I didn't know where the hell I was going, I just had to find you so I kept driving until I found the house.”

She pauses, picking some dirt out from under her fingernail.

“After that it was a walk in the park,” she says with a forced laugh and smile.

“You don’t seem as happy as you should after saving the lives of three people,” Alex says, and the fake smile drops easily from Maggie’s face, still looking at her hands.

“I guess I don’t really like the choices I made to get out of that mess,” Maggie admits. “It’s not something I ever thought I’d have to do. You know, small town cops aren’t really trained in hostage negotiation.”

The joke falls flat, a pathetic attempt at humour in the face of something that has clearly affected Maggie. Alex glances past her at the windows again, tries not to be too worried about the length of time which has passed without seeing Lucy or Kara.

“Those men would have killed you without a second thought,” Alex says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maggie asks, head snapping up.

“Nothing,” Alex says quickly. “It’s just… you’re a better person than me. You’re a better person than they are.”

“We’d both have done what we needed to so we could survive,” Maggie says, more to herself, it seems, than to Alex. “In this world, it’s all we can do.”

Alex isn’t sure she believes that. She wants to believe that she’d have been like Maggie, shown some mercy. But when it was her sister in danger, if it had been her left behind and Maggie and Kara taken, she isn’t sure she could have contained her rage.

She goes to speak, she isn’t sure what’s going to come out of her mouth, maybe the truth, maybe the things she had just thought. But she’s spared by the door to the house opening again and in an instant, Maggie is on her feet, striding forward and then relaxing when she sees Lucy and Kara.

Lucy walks past Kara, sitting back down onto the sunken couch, curling in on herself. Alex looks warily at her, easily able to tell that Lucy has been crying, but she doesn’t mention it. She knows Lucy’s pride must feel wounded enough as it is.

“Everything okay here?” Kara asks, looking between Alex and Maggie.

Alex looks at Maggie, completely unsure how to answer that question. It was tense, so much had been left unsaid. Alex still feels as though her emotions have been shaken up, turned upside down and are only just beginning to settle again.

“All good. You?”

“We should sleep,” Kara says, ignoring the question; it’s the first time in a long time she’s taken charge of a situation. “Move out early tomorrow, find the lake and carry on east.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Alex says, shooting a questioning look at her sister. 

It’s like Kara has been filled with some kind of new energy, eager to keep moving and searching and striving. Just as Alex is flagging, her drive waning, Kara reignites their energy, keeps her focussed. 

But Kara doesn’t say anything more. Instead she moves to the couch, taking Maggie’s vacated seat next to Lucy. 

Alex moves through to the kitchen. She isn’t sure she can sleep so makes herself useful by trying to find something they can use. She watches Kara and Lucy out of the corner of her eye as she twists the rusted taps.

“What do you think they were talking about?” Maggie asks her quietly. “Lucy seemed pretty upset about this whole Cadmus thing.”

“I think she’s just relieved to be alive,” Alex says, glancing over her shoulder. “We all are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading! i understand some people aren't keen on lucy in this fic, but she's necessary for the plot and i'm trying to still balance the kara alex and maggie dynamic with an extra person which is... difficult. but yeah, some big stuff coming up, and again thank you for all your support, you guys are the best, really!


	17. rivers in the wasteland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand i'm back. had a busy week (again). hope you all enjoy this chapter, a bit more intense this time! and the thing people are waiting for i promise is next chapter.

Two days later they find themselves only a few miles from the lake on the road back East. It’s a small victory, returning safely to the path leading them towards a cure, but it’s nothing Maggie feels like celebrating. She’s been going non-stop since the gas station, running and fighting and running again. Her mind is too full, her body too alert to rest, Kara’s words plaguing her:

_ You like her, don’t you? _

The tension between her and Alex is building to a crescendo and Maggie wants to stop it before it all comes crashing down around her. She needs to find the right moment to talk to Alex, away from the others, so they can both move on.

_ There's never a perfect time. _

It’s not like she wants to say what she’s going to. More than anything she wishes it could work between them. But the world was dying and so was Kara. Alex had more important things to focus on, a task which she might not even survive. And Maggie could not get left behind again.

It wasn’t just her feelings about Alex which were a constant presence in her mind. After recounting her escape to Alex, what she had done sits heavy in her stomach. She can still see the face of the young boy who she had left behind, abandoned, without even looking back. And she wishes she’d had a choice.

They pass through another town but they don’t stop until they’re on the outskirts. A short way down the road is a small house, surrounded by forest on either side. Maggie and Lucy scout ahead, Alex trailing behind with Kara who is slowing more and more with each passing second. With every sound, every small movement, Maggie feels her heart jump out of her chest in fright; her stomach is uneasy, unsettled, expecting a repeat of what had happened at the gas station. She just hopes that she isn’t going to have to make a similar choice. 

She hadn’t realised how bothered she was about what she had done in leaving behind those two men. It had crept up on her, invaded her mind and now she could barely think about anything else. She  _ knows  _ it was them or her, but she had no way of knowing if those men had been saved by their friends. Somehow, she doubts it. 

The house, like all the ones they had passed before it, looks long since abandoned, ash and grime thick and undisturbed on the windows, the paint peeling off the door. 

Maggie sits on the small rotting veranda, watching as Alex slows to a stop with Kara who is doubled over coughing. It burns at Maggie’s insides, the injustice and unfairness of it all, that it was humans, not a random act of nature, which had caused this suffering for so many.

“Are you okay?” Lucy asks her. 

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” Maggie says but she gets the impression Lucy can see right through her.

“No, you’re not.”

Maggie sighs, tearing her eyes away from Alex and Kara, wrapping her arms around her knees.

“There’s… there’s something I can’t shake,” she says and waits for Lucy to sit down next to her before continuing. “It’s all I can think about.”

She takes Lucy’s silence as an invitation to carry on.

“Just before I rescued you all from that house, I had to do something I’m not proud of,” she says and then stops. “Well, I might be proud of it, that’s the thing because I had a choice to make before I escaped and tried to find Alex and Kara and if I hadn’t… I’d have never seen them again.”

She has no idea how she’s managing to talk about this so easily with someone she’s only known for two days. If it had been Alex sat next to her, or Kara, it might not be so surprising. But with the way things were with Alex at the moment, and Kara’s illness, the only person she can talk to now is Lucy, at least until she talks to Alex. But Lucy exudes this aura of calm understanding and so Maggie trusts her.

“I killed two people to save another two, that I knew I would save anyway,” Maggie says. “I mean, I didn’t actually pull the trigger or anything but I as good as killed them, I left them with nothing on the side of the road and didn’t look back. And now… now, I can’t stop looking back.”

She can’t help but flinch when Lucy touches her knee to stop her leg from shaking. She presses her thumb into the palm of her right hand, desperately trying not to look anywhere but at her hands.

“Were they good people?”

The question takes Maggie aback.

“They were bounty hunters, but that doesn’t matter, they’re still people,” Maggie says, then pauses and closes her eyes, flashes of fists and knives and guns and yelling running through her mind. “They hurt Alex and Kara. They took them away and they were going to kill me. So no, they weren’t good people.”

She gets the feeling Lucy doesn’t quite understand what she’s trying to say and if Maggie’s being honest, she doesn’t get it herself. But she has to try and explain or else this is going to eat her alive.

“But I left them,” she continues. “What does that make me? I might as well have put their gun to their heads and pulled the trigger. I’m no better than they are.”

“That’s not true,” Lucy says instantly and Maggie closes her eyes, shaking her head. 

Lucy’s words don’t sound especially comforting, not like they might have done coming from somebody else. But that’s not what Maggie needs, nor what she thinks she deserves. Lucy’s talking, like she probably had done with most things, in cold hard facts, that Maggie is not the same or a bad person. Maggie doesn’t need comfort. She needs convincing.

“It is.”

“No, it’s not,” Lucy says more fiercely this time. “This world, here and now, we don’t get to  have this big moral dilemmas. We don’t have the time. You made a choice and what you’re thinking isn’t going to make any difference because it’s done. You left them and went against everything you valued, every part of your moral code, you turned against your basic instincts and you left.”

“Is this you trying to make me feel better? Because it’s not working.”

“That’s what this world does,” Lucy says. “It turns everything you thought you knew about yourself on it’s head and there’s nothing you can do to stop that. It’s just the way the world is. But you are better than they were.”

“Just because I might be better, doesn’t mean they didn’t deserve a chance,” Maggie counters. “I know what it feels like to be left behind, okay? It’s… it’s terrifying. And I’m still scared it’s going to happen, but I don’t let it get to me, I  _ can’t  _ because Kara is dying, Alex is… I can’t think about it. So I push it all away and I become the better person because that’s all I have left that I can count on. But I still left them behind.”

She bites down so hard on her bottom lip she tastes blood. She’s not crying, she refuses to let herself break down and give in because right now, she doesn’t think she deserves to feel. 

“Maggie, look at me,” Lucy says, tugging on Maggie’s arm until she gives in and stops looking after Alex and Kara. “We’ve all had to leave people behind. We’ve all had to make choices we never thought we’d have to make. But then the world ended, the world freaking  _ ended _ . There’s no plan for this, no checklist or rules or whatever, because nothing makes sense anymore.”

Maggie exhales a harsh laugh, her nails digging into her palms.

“You have to see the bigger picture,” Lucy says. “By making that choice, you saved Alex and Kara. You saved me. And I barely know you but I think you would rather live with the fact that your actions killed two men and let you save the three of us, rather than live knowing that, had you made a different choice, Alex and Kara would probably be dead right now.”

Maggie can’t bring herself to look at Lucy anymore, her words hammering home exactly how Maggie feels, how conflicted she is about all this; she knows deep down she made the right choice, yet it’s a choice she had never wanted to make. She looks down at the wooden steps between her legs, trying to muffle the choked sob that works its way up from the depths of her lungs.

“We don’t have the time to choose who lives and who dies. It’s instinct, you save the people you love without a second thought,” Lucy says and when Maggie looks up, she follows her gaze. Kara is walking a few paces in front of Alex, arms wrapped around her chest and Lucy is watching her with reverence. And then, when Maggie looks at Alex following on behind, then Maggie gets it.

_ You save the people you love without a second thought.  _

“The bigger picture,” Maggie says and Lucy catches her eye and smiles.

“The bigger picture.”

They fall silent as Alex and Kara approach and Lucy stands up, guiding Kara up the steps and into the house, leaving Maggie still sat on the veranda, Alex’s shadow looming over her. When she looks up she sees a hand being offered to her and Maggie takes it, pulling herself to her feet. It’s then she notices Alex isn’t actually looking at her, but at the doorway through which Lucy and Kara had just disappeared.

Alex lets out a long sigh, then seems to realise she’s still holding Maggie’s hand and drops it, turning her attention away from the door.

“Are you okay?” she asks, tucking her hands into her coat pockets.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Maggie says, although she knows it’s a pathetic attempt at convincing Alex. She watches the way Alex’s brow furrows, her eyes scanning Maggie’s face as though searching for something.

“Sure? You and Lucy looked like you were talking about something,” Alex says.

“It’s fine, really,” Maggie says and Alex just nods, her gaze falling to the floor.

“Okay, well we should probably get inside -”

“We need to talk.”

She doesn’t mean for the words to come out so suddenly. One second they’re at the back of her mind and the next Alex is looking back up at her, eyes wide for a moment before she realises, just like Maggie, that this conversation had always been inevitable. Maggie’s determined not to look away, not to succumb to the fear that’s eating away inside her at how Alex might,  _ will,  _ react.

But now she’s here, she can’t think of what to say, she can’t let herself come up with the words that might just break her heart. She doesn’t know whether to sit or stand, start somewhere or let Alex take the lead. 

Two things happen simultaneously before she can even think of a word to say. There’s the sound of rustling leaves, hurried footsteps and then Alex is drawing her pistol and for one bizarre moment, Maggie thinks she’s pointing it at her before Alex’s aim is drawn to her left. 

Maggie whips around, following Alex’s wide eyes and her hand reaches for her own gun down by the steps before she even really realises what she’s seeing. 

“Please, don’t shoot!”

Maggie blinks, lowering her gun slightly. The woman who has just ran out from the trees has her hands stretched out in front of her, terrified at the sight of the guns. Maggie is more inclined to drop her gun but Alex still has hers raised, the safety pulled back.

“Please, I need help!” the woman says, her hands shaking as she takes another step forward. “It's my brother, he's been hurt.”

Lucy and Kara come running out of the house, stopping on the veranda when they see the scene in front of them.

“What is it? What's going on?” Lucy asks, looking between Alex's gun and the woman who has frozen.

“It's my brother, please, I need help,” she begs again, looking at Lucy and then at Kara and Maggie sees Alex’s grip on her gun tighten.

“What makes you think we can help?” Alex says.

“You’re the first people I’ve seen in so long, you’re my only hope,” the woman says and Maggie takes a step towards Alex, her gun by her side; they don’t need to use them, the woman looks defenceless, hopeless.

“Well, we can’t,” Alex says. “My sister’s hurt, and I’ve got to save her first.”

“No, don’t go!” the woman says and Maggie rests her hand on Alex’s forearm, trying to get her to lower the gun. “You know what it’s like then, when your family’s hurt. He’s all I’ve got, I can’t lose him.”

“Alex.”

But she doesn’t need to say anymore than that; Alex knows all too well what it feels like to be hanging on to the last remaining glimmer of hope. She’s not going to just walk away. She’s too good for that.

“Fine, we’ll help you,” Alex says, pocketing her gun and the woman hides a sob behind her hand, taking a step forward as if to hug Alex, but she turns away, looking back towards Kara and Lucy. “We’ll be back in a second, just wait here.”

The woman nods, tears falling steadily down her cheeks. Maggie touches her arm gently, trying to be reassuring and follows Alex back to Kara and Lucy.

“What’re you doing?” Lucy says quietly, staring at the woman. “This is way too risky, Alex.”

“What choice do we have?” Kara counters. “She’s alone and the only person she has left is hurt.”

“I agree with Kara, we’ve got to do something,” Maggie says. “I’ve made choices I’m not proud of so I’m sure as hell not going to just leave now.”

“Lucy, you should stay here with Kara,” Alex says.

“No way, I’m coming with you,” Lucy says, folding her arms. “You're not leaving me behind, what if something goes wrong?”

“It's one woman and her injured brother, I think we can take them if we need to,” Alex argues. “But I can't risk Kara being hurt, and she can't stay here on her own.”

“You're right, I'm not staying here on my own,” Kara says, drawing herself up to her full height. “I'm coming with you.”

“Kara -”

“No, we’re not getting split up again,” Kara says firmly.

“Together or not at all,” Lucy says with no room for argument in her tone, although Alex looks as if she's going to try anyway.

“They’re right, Alex,” Maggie says. “We’re not leaving anyone behind, not this time.”

Alex gives her a long, searching look before turning back to the woman who is stood waiting, fingertips pressed to her chin like a prayer.

“Fine, but if anything happens, we run back here, okay?” she says and they all nod.

Alex grabs her first aid kit from her pack and her and Maggie take the rest of their stuff back into the house, confident that no one is going to be passing by any time before they return. There’s a tense silence as they do so, both aware that they had come so close to finally getting their feelings out in the open. But once they’d helped this woman and her brother, then they could talk; Maggie isn’t going to let it go again.

They walk back outside to where Kara, Lucy and the woman are waiting, Maggie with her shotgun in hand, not wanting to leave it behind just in case. 

“Where’s your brother?” Alex asks.

“We’re by the old water tower, just beyond the trees,” the woman says and she starts to lead the way, Alex close behind, Kara between Lucy and Maggie, protected. “It’s the only place we’ve felt safe to be, no one would go searching in there.”

“Are you heading to the coast too?” Kara asks but the woman shakes her head.

“Just trying to survive any way we can,” the woman says and Alex looks back at Maggie, sharing the same slight frown. “My brother, Sam, his foot was caught in some sort of trap while we were searching for food, we haven’t been able to move on for days.”

“It’s okay, Alex was a doctor, she can help him,” Kara says to the woman as she leads them through the trees.

They walk silently through the thicket of trees for what feels like forever but can’t be more than an hour, up the muddy slope. The further they walk, the more unsettled Maggie feels; it’s not something she can place, she can’t quite pinpoint what’s wrong, but there’s  _ something.  _ Still, she isn’t about to run away and leave this woman and her brother to die; she’s passed judgement on too many people and she’s not going to let herself do so again. 

They emerge from the woods onto a field. Just up ahead is the water tower, crumbling, decrepit, looming like a statue which commemorates a lost world, a world in which society functioned and humanity had thrived. Now it just reminds Maggie of how society had fallen apart around them and there was nothing they could do to stop it. 

“He’s just inside,” the woman says, getting a few paces ahead of the group before Lucy’s hand on Maggie’s arm stops them.

“I don’t like this,” Lucy whispers, quietly enough so the woman doesn’t hear them. “Something’s wrong.”

Maggie glances between the woman and Lucy, and the uneasiness redoubles in her stomach. 

“I know,” she says as quietly as Lucy. “I don’t like it either. But what choice do we have?”

“We don’t even know her name,” Lucy hisses. “Why would Alex risk so much, it’s not like her.”

“Because if Kara was injured and she ran into someone, she’d want them to help, too,” Maggie says and Lucy sighs, releasing Maggie’s arm. “Besides, it’s the four of us against two, and we have guns. It might not even come to that.”

They’re not the only ones who are apprehensive about this situation; Alex had known it was a risk, she knows the others are wondering what the hell she’s playing at, albeit silently. But people get desperate when it comes to helping family, and that’s what she sees when she looks at the woman; desperation. Alex may be nervous, keeping Kara back from the woman, automatically protective, but she’s not going to turn away. 

“You two should wait out here with Kara,” Alex says, as the woman walks towards the broken in door of the water tower. 

“I’m coming with you,” Maggie says. “I’m not letting you go in there on your own without backup. What if something happens to you?”

Alex considers for a moment; it’s definitely not the worst idea in the world and she doesn’t think she has much of a choice either. 

“Okay, but Lucy you have to stay out here with Kara,” she says, holding up her hand when Kara starts to argue. “Look, chances are, everything is going to be okay. But if it isn’t, if for some reason we don’t -”

“No, don’t say it.”

“- we don’t come back, then you just have to run, both of you,” Alex says, cutting off Kara. “If anything happens, just run and don’t look back.”

Kara is as white as a sheet, almost horrified at what Alex is suggesting. Alex tries not to look at her, afraid that if she does she’ll make the wrong choice and just turn and walk away from this woman who has begged for their help. 

“Ready?” she asks Maggie, glancing down at the shotgun she’s holding and Maggie nods. 

Before she can turn away, Kara grabs her and pulls her into a hug, brief but strong and Alex almost doesn’t want to let go. She makes eye contact with Lucy over Kara’s shoulder and she nods, touching Kara’s back to get her to pull away.

“You better come back, Danvers,” Lucy says. “You too, Sawyer. We need you here.”

Alex just nods, turning and walking away from her best friend and her sister with Maggie, over to where the woman is stood waiting by the door.

“Is everything okay?” the woman asks, looking back at Lucy and Kara.

“We’re fine,” Alex says. “We don’t need to make this place any more crowded than it will be, I’ll need room to work,” she lies easily, gesturing for the woman to lead the way. 

The base of the water tower is larger than Alex had expected, but she supposes it makes sense given its proximity to the lake. The walls are damp where she reaches out to find her bearings as they make their way inside, Maggie behind her. They’re silent, the only sounds the shuffling of their feet, the occasional  _ drip, drip, drip  _ from high above them and their echoed breathing. It’s barely been an hour since her and Maggie had started to talk, something Alex had been so afraid of doing; but walking through an abandoned, dark water tower… yeah, she’d take the big emotional talk anyday.

“What the hell is that smell?” Maggie whispers behind her, her voice bouncing back off the walls. 

“It’s just the damp,” the woman says. “Not far now, he’s going to be so happy to see you two.”

Alex’s stomach turns at the wording, the back of her mouth dry. The further they walk, the darker it becomes and the stronger the smell gets. She covers her nose with her hand, keeping a firm grip on the first aid kit, wishing it was her gun.

“Some damp,” Maggie says and Alex turns her head, barely able to make out Maggie in the darkness.

“That’s not damp,” Alex whispers and her blood runs cold. She stops dead in her tracks, reaching out in front of her but the woman has moved somewhere and fear claws at the back of Alex’s mind as she fumbles in her pocket for the lighter. “That’s not damp at all.”

She nearly drops the lighter as soon as the flame bursts out. 

“ _ Shit _ .”

As soon as she sees the blood on the floor and the walls, illuminated briefly by the flame, the smell becomes stronger, making her gag. She has no time to process it all, the smell, the sight of rotting corpses, her eyes burning with tears, blurring her vision so much that she doesn’t see it coming.

Strong arms wrap around her neck, pulling her backwards. She drops the lighter, the room plunged into darkness and she loses her footing as she’s dragged backwards by whoever has stepped out of the shadows like something out of her worst nightmare.

“Maggie! Run!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! i really appreciate all your support, it means so much. until next time... it's gonna be emotional :)


	18. more heart, less attack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, after however many chapters when I started saying it, the Alex and Maggie talk is here. Sorry for the delay on this chapter in general, I've had a pretty rough week. Somehow I got my mojo back and spent most of my work breaks and earlier today writing and editing this to make it the best I could. I'm pretty proud of it so... yeah, I don't often say that so I hope you guys like it (like is the wrong word... just don't hate me?)

“Maggie, get out of here!”

The arm tightens around her throat, she can smell the man behind her, stinking of sweat and blood. She kicks and struggles, then she hears more shouting and footsteps and then -  _ bang! _

The room is flooded with light for a split second as Maggie’s gun goes off, the shot echoing around the walls. It’s enough for the man to loosen his grip on Alex, for her to then drive her elbow into his solar plexus and another  _ bang _ and the sound of a shell casing clattering to the floor.

She stumbles on ground wet either from blood or water, she doesn’t want to find out. Somehow, between the shouts and the shots and the overwhelming fear, she finds Maggie’s arm, dragging her away, the sound of their footsteps lost in the chaos.

They spill out into the field, feet pounding over hard ground. Maggie turns and twists out of her grip, firing off another shot and reloading the gun as she stumbles back into Alex. She chances a look over her shoulder, sees someone on the ground but more people, more cannibals, are running after them.

“The trees, get to the trees!” Maggie shouts at Alex, flipping the shotgun barrel up.

Kara and Lucy must have had the same idea as soon as they'd heard the first shot echo back through the water tower. For what it was worth, Lucy had kept her promise to Alex, however hard Kara must have fought against her.

A bullet flies past her head, splintering a tree and sending bark flying in all directions as they fall into the treeline. In a fleeting moment of panic, Alex thinks Maggie isn't behind her and reaches out, still running. Maggie’s hand finds hers, her shotgun by her side, impossible to get a clear shot in the thicket of trees.

They weave in and out, over and under branches, swiping them away before they scratch their faces, their breaths harsh, feet heavy. The shots are more sporadic now, distant, the chase turning in their favour. Whether the cannibals are in the trees or not, Alex doesn't know but the further they are away from them the better.

White spots start dancing in her vision, the fatigue setting in, her body weak and still recovering. It's Maggie that leads them to safety, forging a path as they run, eventually tumbling down the side of the bank and onto the road.

They scramble up from the cracked tarmac, knees bruised, and just up ahead they can see the house. Alex’s heart is in her mouth, her nostrils stained with the smell of blood and charred, rotting flesh. The world spins as she staggers to the side of the road and empties the pitiful contents of her stomach onto the slope of the forest.

A hand on her back makes her jump, thinking they've been caught, but it's only Maggie, who is as out of breath as she is.

“Quickly, let's get inside.”

Alex lets herself be lead up the road. Her mind is so full, contaminated by what she's seen. Everything had happened so fast, descended into chaos in the blink of an eye. It had been stupid, so, so stupid to go there in the first place, and now she’s put them all in danger, yet again.

She finds her strength by the time they reach the house, staggering up the veranda ahead of Maggie, pushing open the door of the house. Their packs have remained untouched, but Alex bypasses them and strides straight into the first room, looking around desperately. But she knows before she even calls out.

“Kara! Lucy!’

Her heart is racing in her chest again, bruising her rib cage as she sprints up the stairs and throws open every door, but all to no avail. 

“They're not here,” she says when she returns to the front room where Maggie is. “Why the hell aren't they here?”

“Maybe they got lost,” Maggie says.

Her hands are on her knees as she catches her breath, blood trickling down her cheek from where a branch has cut her.

“Or maybe they got caught,” Alex says and makes to run out of the door but Maggie stops her, almost catching her as Alex stumbles in surprise.

“Or maybe they're waiting somewhere until it's safe for them to move,” Maggie says and Alex pushes against her. 

“And what if they're not safe?” Alex says. “What then? We just sit here and wait while they're being… we can't, I won't.”

She pushes again but Maggie forces her back with a sharp push on her shoulders, blocking the exit with her small, but strong frame.

“I'm not going to sit here and do nothing, Maggie! That's my friend and my sister out there!”

“I'm not giving you a choice this time. We wait.”

 

***

Lucy peers through thick thorns, trying to catch any glimpse of movement. She has no idea how far they've run, let alone if they've gone in the right direction. She doesn't know where Maggie and Alex are, if they're even safe; one of them had fired a warning shot and without hesitation, Lucy had grabbed Kara and ran.

They'd tried to find the house again but it was nearly impossible and then when the shouting had started, Lucy had dragged Kara through the undergrowth out of sight.

“Anything?” Kara asks beside her; she looks more ill than ever. 

“No, nothing,” Lucy 

“Alex and Maggie -”

“They’re tough, they’ll have gotten away,” Lucy says and then Kara goes to move, but Lucy pulls her back down, harder than she means to. “We can’t move, it might not be safe.”

“But we have to find them, they might need our help,” Kara says.

“And I promised Alex to get you away from the danger,” Lucy argues. “We’re not going back,  we’ll wait until it’s dark and go back to the house and meet them there.”

“What if they’re not back at the house, Lucy? What if…”

Lucy shifts on her side carefully, silently and takes Kara’s hand which is cold to the touch, far from the usual warmth Kara exudes.

“Kara, listen to me,” she says calmly. “This is Alex and Maggie. Now I may not know Maggie that well, but I know she’s tough, she’s got guts. And we both know Alex. They’re going to be okay, they’re at the house waiting and probably having this exact conversation. Right here, right now is the safest we can be.”

She squeezes Kara’s hand as tears spill down her cheeks, her eyes glistening and hauntingly staring at Lucy. There’s so much pain behind Kara’s eyes and Lucy could only hope the pain wasn’t about to become too much for Kara to bear. 

“So, we wait,” Kara says quietly and Lucy nods.

“We wait.”

 

***

Alex is pacing furiously, her hands clenching into fists and then unclenching again, like she’s trying to reach out for something that isn’t there. Trying to find and grab onto a reason which will make Maggie step aside. But Alex would be searching for a long time because there is no way in hell Maggie is moving.

“I have to, I’m sorry, I have to go find them,” Alex says, seemingly not beyond begging.

“What if you go out there and start shouting for them?” Maggie says. “What if the cannibals are waiting for you to do exactly that?”

“They might be, I’m willing to take that chance!” Alex says, trying again and failing again to get past Maggie.

“No, you’re not,” Maggie says simply, refusing to budge an inch. “You think you are because you’re scared and all you can think about right now is your sister and best friend. But you’re not willing to risk all that. Because you know if you go out there, they’re going to be found or we’re going to be found, and that will be the end of everything.”

Alex has fire in her eyes, her jaw clenched as she tries to come up with an argument against Maggie, something she can use to get past her. But Maggie will not move no matter what Alex tries to use against her.

“But you have a gun! Lucy has mine -”

“I have two shells left,” Maggie says, and reaches into her pocket and pulls them out. “That’s not enough. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“ _ We  _ wouldn’t stand a chance? You can stay here -”

“No way,” Maggie says, not remotely astonished at Alex’s recklessness. “You think I’d let you go out there by yourself?”

“What the hell do you care?” Alex spits, throwing her hands up and Maggie is stunned for a second, her words faltering.

“What do I  - I care a damn sight more than you think, Alex.”

And again the tension is building, far more rapidly and with far more danger than it had before. About to reach boiling point and Maggie knows that this time, there is no escaping it. No bounty hunters, no cannibals, no Kara or Lucy or Cadmus confessions. Her and Alex. All fired up and emotional, smashing through every single wall they’ve built. 

“We’ll wait,” Maggie says calmly. “Give Lucy and kara time to get back to us before we go out there. And then when we’ve got them  back, you can be happy knowing that you saved them by not making a rash decision.”

Alex’s laugh is loud and dark, holding no humour.

“Happy? You think…” she trails off, staring at Maggie, her eyes searching her and then her shoulders slump slightly, like all the fight has been drained out of her. “You  really have no idea do you?”

Maggie’s silence is enough; she’s not sure where Alex is going with this, but she steels herself, prepares for the worst.  

“You think that’s going to make me jump up and down and sing a song because they’re alive?” Alex says, her voice rising. “You think I won’t be so completely relieved before remembering my sister is dying? That the only chance I have of saving her is getting past bounty hunters, acid rain storm, lightning that strikes entire continents, freaking cannibals? You think then I’ll be happy?”

“Alex, I -”

But she cuts Maggie off with a wave of her hand, taking a step forward into Maggie’s space, the softness in her eyes replaced with a deep, heavy anger and something more, something…  _ sad _ . And Maggie’s heart shatters before Alex even opens her mouth.

“Just stop!” It’s a quiet, destructive anger. “Stop telling me how I should feel! Yeah, it should be enough, I should be happy because they’d be alive, but you know what I do feel?” Alex says, unblinkingly. “Pain. All I feel is  _ pain _ , Maggie. Pain because the world has ended, because my friends and family are dead, because my sister is dying from a man-made virus, pain because I found some light in this world, someone who kept me moving, who helped my sister and got me to continue when I thought all hope was lost and yet all I feel is pain because she doesn’t want me!”

And there it is. The words Maggie has been both dreading and dreaming of, caught in her own battle, convinced she would never hear them and hoping she wouldn’t. They crackle in the air around them, echoing and so, so  _ loud _ in the silence that has followed. They crawl inside Maggie’s chest and pull on her heart and widen and fill the cracks there. She never thought this could feel so  painful. 

Alex is still staring at her, waiting. She’s not even taking advantage of Maggie’s silence and striding out into the night to find Kara and Lucy. She’s waiting. Angry and hurt and there’s only one thing Maggie can think to say, burning harsher than it had ever done before.

“You think it’s because I didn’t want you?” she says, her voice a whisper compared to Alex’s.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s because I’m scared to want you!”

Time stops. She wasn’t even sure she had meant to say those words. But the truth had spilled from her, unrestrained and true to the letter. It’s almost too painful to watch how Alex physically recoils, the near snarl on her face wiped away in an instant. Like she had hardly dared to believe her feelings were mutual.

“I am so scared to want you,” Maggie says again. “But I can’t help it, I’ve tried and I pushed you away but I can’t stop. I can’t stop thinking about you, I can’t stop having these feelings for you and that… that terrifies me far more than the end of the world.”

“So you thought you just wouldn’t say anything? After all this time, after all we’ve been through?” Alex says, anger taking the place of shock, a defensive mechanism Maggie is becoming all too familiar with. “After all you said about trust and no secrets? Because I know you knew how I felt, I could see it when you stepped back in that bunker.”

“I was going to tell you, I was, Alex,” Maggie says, a pleading edge to her voice as Alex scoffs. “But then… we got kidnapped, everything blew up, Lucy came back -”

“What’s Lucy got to do with this?”

“Nothing, not really, just… you have your friend back,” Maggie says, not holding back, not now. “I didn’t think you needed me anymore, just like you had said in that gas station. I didn’t want to be the person left behind, no matter how scared I am at how I feel when I so much as look at you.  So I tried to stop wanting you, I thought it was better to just forget about it and move on but… I can’t do it anymore, Alex. I can’t be scared anymore. I want you. I just… I want you.”

She tastes salt on her lips and realises she’s crying. It’s why Alex is watching her that way, torn between comfort and anger, conflicted just like they have both been about this whole thing possibly since they had met all those weeks ago in Wymore. 

“Maggie…”

She can’t stand how soft Alex’s tone is now. She prefers the anger.

“But I can’t have you,” Maggie says and Alex finally drops her gaze to the floor, her heart as shattered as Maggie’s is, each word sending a crippling blow to her soul. “The world’s ended and there’s no coming back from that.”

“But -”

Alex steps closer still, reaching out into the space between them, a no-man's-land. And Maggie can’t cross that line. It might just kill her.

“We need more time,” Maggie says as if every word isn’t destroying her, isn’t going against the person she used to be. But this is Alex, and if she’s going to change to protect anyone, it’s her. “Time we don’t have and time we’ll never have. I can’t… I can’t fall for you like I know I could if I’m going to lose you. I’m scared to want you because I could have it all and then you could… it could all end. In the blink of an eye, or slowly just like the world did. And either way, I can’t love and lose again. I’m sorry, Alex. I just can’t.”

She wipes her cheeks, her vision blurred as she watches Alex shake her head and look up, tears of her own swimming in deep, soulful brown. And Maggie wants nothing more than just take back everything she had said and kiss her. Kiss her until they forget they’re fighting an unwinnable war, forget that nowhere is safe, forget that they don’t have and never will have enough time. She wants to get lost in everything Alex Danvers is and everything she ever will be. 

“Alex…”

She has no idea how that sentence is going to end. And she never finds out.

An ear-splitting scream cuts through the night, cracking the tension between them and shattering the heartbreak. The both jump, millimetres from each other’s embrace. A name starts to form on Alex’s lips as she looks towards Maggie, anguish replaced with fear.

She’s barely halfway out of the door before a gunshot rips through the valley and before Maggie can take a breath, Alex is fleeing into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah uh... sorry not sorry I guess? This is a sanvers endgame, but I never like to make things too easy. I'm sure one way or another Maggie will see sense and realise that Kara is right - there's never a perfect time. I hope you all stick with me on this because I promise you at some point it will be worth the wait. It's just a rough road. Let me know what you think in the comments or @llucylane on tumblr and as always, thank you so much for your continued support!


	19. world spins madly on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for fear of sounding like a broken record, sorry for the wait on this update.... for a better explanation, see the end notes!

“Alex! Alex, just wait!”

At some point between getting back to the house and hearing the gunshot, it’s started raining. Maggie doesn’t know how long they were talking, arguing, confessing to each other for, but it’s enough for the rain to turn the slopes by the roadside into mud. She stumbles after Alex, soaked to the skin in seconds. Her wet hair falls across her face, her hands outstretched as if to part the rain in front of her as she tries to see clearly through the downpour.

She sees Alex run off up the slope to the left, unsteady on muddy ground, grounding herself as she climbs, her boots sinking into the mud. Maggie follows, slipping on the mud, her hands sinking into the ground as she hauls herself to her feet.

“Alex! Hold on!”

But Alex ignores her, blinded by heartache and fear. She reaches the top of the incline and for a heartstopping second, Maggie loses sight of her. Alex is already racing through the trees and Maggie is only a few paces behind her, raindrops falling from the tree branches. She has no idea where the shot had come from but Alex leads the way, headstrong and confident, a woman on a mission. 

“Kara! Lucy!”

Alex yells their names, voice high and panicked. Maggie wants to call out and stop her from shouting, but no one jumps out at them. All the cannibals must have gone back under cover because of the rain and Maggie can only hope that this commotion doesn’t make them brave enough to come back out.

“Alex? Alex, is that you?”

Kara’s voice cuts through the rain, loud and clear and close. Alex spins around, catching Maggie’s eyes for a brief, painful moment before she sprints to the left, slipping. Maggie hisses as a branch whips at her face as she runs through the trees behind Alex, her cheek stinging. Whatever panic she’s feeling must be magnified a hundred times over in Alex, battling for a place alongside all the other emotions that have come pouring out. 

Then, through the trees, Alex spots Kara just before Maggie does and somehow finds the energy to sprint faster, long legs propelling her over mud and dirt and leaves and fallen branches until she skids to a halt at Kara’s side.

Maggie reaches them no more than a second later, clutching at the stitch in her side, her legs heavy as she steps towards Kara. Alex’s body is blocking her line of sight but the way they’re holding themselves is enough to make Maggie’s blood run cold.

“Where’s Lucy?”

“I… I think…” Kara’s voice is shaking, and when Maggie moves to see her, Kara is staring at where the ground disappears, a precipice running the length of the forest, akin to a cliff edge. 

Maggie doesn’t want to know how far that drop is. 

“Kara, what happened?” Alex says, her hands on Kara’s shoulders, her voice unnervingly calm. 

It’s then Maggie notices the gun in Kara’s hand. Alex is too busy trying to catch Kara’s eye to look at Maggie, but she knows Alex has spotted it. It had been Kara who had fired the shot. 

“Hey, Kara, put the gun down,” Maggie says, edging towards the sisters, her hands outstretched. Still, Alex doesn’t look at her. “It’s okay, just drop the gun, you’re safe now.”

Kara turns her head sharply, her eyes wide with shock. Her hands are locked into place, not letting go of the gun. Maggie takes another step forward, resting her hands on Kara’s wrists and at the touch, Kara drops the gun to the forest floor. In an instant, Kara is swept into Alex’s arms, her entire body sagging as the tension washes away. Maggie bends down and carefully picks up Alex’s gun, locking the safety into place.

“Kara, tell me what happened,” Alex says, and now the panic has started to return. “Where’s Lucy?”

“She… We were waiting until it was safe to move,” Kara says quietly, still stunned by whatever has happened. “And then the rain started and we knew we had to get back so we got up to leave and… and one of them jumped out at us and he got Lucy and he was pulling her away a-and somehow I found the gun, your gun and they were standing here, struggling, just for a second and then I p-pulled the trigger and t-they fell, Alex, she fell, I don’t know…”

Before Alex can say anything, Maggie looks over the edge of the slope, the panic having set in hard and fast and deep, almost bruising. When she sees the height of the drop and what’s at the bottom, the relief floods her with the same intensity, clouding her senses so she can barely hear Kara sobbing into Alex’s shoulder.

She doesn’t even turn back to the other two but starts to scramble down the side of the ditch, ignoring the shout of her name by Alex. She slips just before she reaches the bottom, her jeans soaked through and muddy, but she can hardly care. God, she barely knows Lucy, it’s been mere days, but the impact she’s had has resonated so strongly with Maggie because her heart is in her throat right now. If they lose Lucy, Maggie is sure she’ll lose Alex and Kara, too. Another victim in this world that is still barely turning, a world which has taken so many people from them. 

There’s so much blood, spread over the wet ground, seeping into the mud and coating the leaves. But none of it is Lucy’s. The man, the cannibal, is lying half on top of her, staring up at the stormclouds without seeing, blood pooling out from underneath him. Kara’s shot had found it’s mark in his chest, probably killing him instantly. 

Maggie pushes his body aside, quite happy to leave him there to rot. She has no sympathy for him or any of the cannibals; she would rather not survive than lose the last of her humanity like that.

“Lucy? Come on, wake up,” she says, shaking her shoulders but Lucy doesn’t move.

She must have been knocked out by the fall, and Maggie starts looking around for any kind of injury but there’s nothing obvious. 

“Maggie!”

She glances back up the slope and sees Alex peering over it; even from where she’s crouching by Lucy’s body, she can see the fear on Alex’s face.

“Is she -”

“She’s alive,” Maggie calls back up, and Alex hangs her head in relief. “Can’t say the same for this guy, though.”

“H-how… I thought I’d…” Kara appears by Alex’s side.

“She’s just knocked out,” Maggie says. “You only got the bad guy. I could really use a hand down here.”

Without another word, Alex is scrambling down the bank, perhaps more skillfully than Maggie had in her urgency. She gives the dead man only a fleeting look before she hooks her hands under Lucy’s other shoulder and pulls her up. 

There’s a long groan as the movement stirs Lucy from her unconscious state. She leans heavily against Alex, a dead weight, head rolling. 

“Lucy, it’s us, you’re okay,” Alex says, but Lucy seems to have passed out again. 

Maggie sees the telltale sign of red on the back of Lucy’s head, trickling down her neck. It’s not as bad as Alex’s wound had been, but it had still been enough to knock her out. Alex kicks into the side of the bank with her foot, trying to find some purchase, but it’s nearly impossible and the ground crumbles away.

With the combination of their weight and the rain, their next few attempts give the same result. Kara’s watching them, still shell-shocked at both what she’s done and that Lucy is still alive. They have to get back up to the top somehow, not only for Lucy but so Kara isn’t stranded up there on her own.

“We’ll have to go around,” Maggie says, unsure if Alex is even willing to listen to her. “The slope might level off at some point, but there’s no way we’re getting back up there with Lucy too.”

Alex silently agrees. She wonders if Alex will ever feel the need to speak to her again. It’s probably what she deserves and she wouldn’t be surprised. Hurt, yes, always. But not surprised, not after causing this pain for Alex. Her explanation, her own anguish at the situation hasn’t done what she had hoped it would. 

“This way,” Alex says shortly, gesturing with the arm not holding Lucy up to their right. “That’s the way we came from.”

Maggie has no idea if Alex is right, but she trusts her judgement. The rain is still falling through the trees and the longer they stay there, the more dangerous it will be. She can barely feel her hands anymore, every part of her numb with cold.

“Kara, you’ll have to come down to us,” Alex calls back up the slope to where Kara’s still standing and watching them.

Cautiously, Kara makes her way down the muddy bank, her gaze anywhere but on the dead cannibal, the man she had shot and killed. When she reaches the bottom, she lets out a shaky breath.

“Is she going to be okay?” she asks, standing in front of the other three. 

She brushes the damp hair out of Lucy’s eyes with trembling fingers and at her touch, Lucy stirs. 

“She’ll be fine,” Alex says. “You know Lucy, she’s made of strong stuff. Going to take more than a fall to stop her.”

Kara wipes at her cheeks, nodding. Maggie squeezes her shoulder out of sympathy.

“You saved her, Kara,” she says, knowing that it probably won’t make much of a difference to how Kara is feeling right now.

They wade silently through the ravine, Alex and Maggie slowing with each step they’re having to hold up Lucy. Kara takes the lead, arms folded tightly across her stomach as they walk, isolating herself. At some point, Lucy regains consciousness and doesn’t fall back under, but still needs the support of the other two so she doesn’t fall to her knees. She doesn’t ask what happened, sensing the tone hidden in the silence. 

Just as Maggie is about to suggest that maybe they’re going the wrong way, the ground starts to slope down and through the last of the trees they can see the road. Alex had been right after all; just on the bend of the road was the house.

It’s hard to comprehend that it was only earlier that day when they had first laid eyes on the house. So much has happened in such a short space of time and Maggie feels like she’s aged ten years. 

Lucy stumbles across the threshold of the house first, now only supported by Alex. She sits on the edge of the worn couch covered with a moth-eaten and mouldy blanket. With an open head wound, Maggie really hopes she’s not dumb enough to lie down on it. 

“Let me take a look at your head,” Alex says, picking up her pack and moving it to the couch. 

Maggie stands in the doorway with Kara who looks so withdrawn, not quite making eye contact with Lucy. Then, Lucy holds a hand out and for a second, Maggie thinks she’s reaching for Alex who has just pulled a bottle of water out of her pack and some gauze. She turns to look at Kara and motions almost invisibly with her head.

Kara moves slowly forward, less cautious with each step until she covers the rest of the distance in one long stride, nearly falling into Lucy’s outstretched arms, sinking to her knees in front of her. Alex jumps back, her hands dropping by her side as she watches Lucy and Kara embrace, Lucy’s hands gripping the wet back of Kara’s coat.

“I thought I’d killed you,” Kara mumbles, her voice thick with tears. 

Lucy’s eyes are screwed shut and it feels as if they’re intruding on a private moment if they stay in the room. If it wasn’t obvious what Lucy had been talking about only hours ago on the steps of the house, about the bigger picture, it was now. She pulls back from Kara, resting her forehead against hers. 

“I’m okay,” Lucy says. “You saved me, Kara. You saved my life.”

A sob escapes from Kara and Maggie finds she can no longer stay in the room. Without a second glance, she turns her back and walks out of the house, back to the steps her and Lucy had talked on. A conversation which had brought all of Maggie’s feelings towards Alex into startling resolution.

Kara had saved Lucy without a second thought. She had pulled that trigger and killed a man because she loves Lucy and would do anything to protect her, even if it meant going against her most basic principles. And Maggie… Maggie wants to think that she’s protected Alex from pain in her own way, too. By stopping something before it even got started. Without a second thought, as Lucy had said, she has done what she thought was best for Alex.

She thought it would protect her, too. But it’s done the exact opposite; now she only feels more hurt, more pain because she knows that Alex wants her and she knows that she can’t have her. And she will never forget the look on Alex’s face when she had told her that.

She runs her hands over her face, wiping away the mud and the sweat and the dried blood on her cheek. She turns and goes back inside, knowing she can’t stay away from the others forever, however much she doesn’t want to be reminded of her own failures and decisions.

When she walks back into the room, Kara is sitting next to Lucy on the couch, holding her hand between her own as Alex finishes treating the wound on the back of Lucy’s head. Lucy winces, gingerly touching the wound when Alex stands up, wiping her hands on the blanket covering the couch. 

“If you start feeling faint, tell me,” she says, but Lucy isn’t really paying her any attention, more focussed on her hand in Kara’s. 

Alex makes her way over to Maggie and she freezes, no longer sure of how to act. If Alex hadn’t wanted her to leave before, she must do now. What reason would she have to let Maggie stay with them? 

“You’re bleeding,” Alex says and her voice is so quiet and so soft that Maggie could almost  _ cry. _

“Just a cut, I’ll be fine,” Maggie says, but takes the water bottle Alex hands her. “How’s Lucy?”

“Dazed,” Alex says. “But she’ll be okay.”

“Good, that’s… that’s good.”

“Yeah.”

“So, are we staying?” Maggie asks, avoiding eye contact. 

“For Lucy, we should,” Alex says, but at this, Lucy looks up from the couch, her face paling as she stands. 

“I’m fine, let’s just get the hell out of here,” she says, unsteady on her feet as she takes a step forward to where their packs are stacked by the doorway. “It’s too dangerous.”

“You should be resting,” Kara says, her hand slipping from Lucy’s and falling into her lap.

Lucy looks to the other two for support and when she’s met with silence, she huffs, bracing herself against the wall.

“Please, let’s just go,” she says. “I want to get as far away from here as possible, away from crazy people who want to eat us and might come hunting again. Just… anywhere but here.”

In Maggie’s opinion, Lucy seemed far more lucid than Alex had done when she had been knocked out savagely with a gun to the head. She’s not exactly doing backflips in celebration that they might have to stay in this house another night. Echoes of her earlier conversation with Alex linger in the walls and she’s hurting enough as it is.

Alex, it seems, is thinking the same thing.

“Fine, we’ll move out,” she says. “Get as far as we can before it gets dark and then we’re stopping. However much we want to get away, I’m not risking this road at night.”

Lucy just nods her consensus, but before she can bend down to pick up her pack, Alex hands it to her. By the time they’re ready to leave, Maggie isn’t sure they have more than a couple of hours daylight left, even more uncertain about how far they will be able to get. 

Anywhere is better than here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you follow me on tumblr @llucylane/my other story on ao3, you'll know that i'm moving to america in five days as of posting this chapter. therefore, this will be my last update for a couple of weeks while i settle in to my new college and adjust to the changes. i will be writing in that time because it's the one thing that keeps me sane, but also i'll be out experiencing everything this year has to offer. i apologise in advance for the wait between this chapter and the next but i will definitely carry this story through until it's end! to be honest, the wait probably won't be much longer than some of the gaps in between previous updates!
> 
> all of your support and kind words on this fic have been so so so appreciated, it makes me happy to write for you all! so, until next time (aka early September), thank you for reading and the awesome responses you guys give me on this fic! ~ pol


	20. sign of the times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back! sorry for the wait, but moving country, starting a new college, feeling pretty overwhelmed... yeah, it's been hard to find the time to write. this chapter kinda got away from me but... well, i hope you guys enjoy it

The rain has cleared the air, the wind now bitingly cold and their clothes no longer stick to their skin as they walk along the dampened tarmac which has been pushed up by tree roots in some places. In this world, all four seasons can come and go in one day. The only thing that stays the same is the grey expanse of cloud above them. A reminder that this was the world that was here to stay. The point of no return, a message from above that nothing would ever be how it was.

Maggie feels this in more ways than one.

Yes, the world has ended. The sky is grey, the sun no longer shines and rain, sleet, snow, hail, thunder and lightning wage war on the earth. 

But after the events of the past couple of days, the confessions, the heartbreak, the fear… her relationship with Alex has changed irreversibly too. She can’t take her words back, just how the world can’t take back its own demise.

She wants to run. But there’s no way she would survive a day out here on her own, not when her whole reason for fighting in a world that has already ended would still be alive and saving her sister. And Maggie wants to help save Kara, too. 

So she stays. She walks behind the other's, hand on her shotgun, trying to look at anyone but Alex, putting one foot in front of the other. 

They once again leave the road in favour of the trees to find some shelter as the night rapidly approaches. The ground is muddy under their feet, their boots sinking into the leaves, slipping on wet branches and logs when they glance to the right to make sure the road is still in view, to make sure they’re still going east.

To her credit, Lucy is powering on, leading the way with Alex. Although her injury hadn’t been as bad as Alex’s, Maggie knows she won’t be able to continue without a rest for much longer and it seems Kara has the same idea. They pause in a small clearing surrounded by silver birch trees which don’t offer much cover from other people who may be passing through and they’ve learnt not to take that kind of risk anymore.

“We need to stop,” Kara says, standing close to Lucy whose facade has dropped and she leans heavily against a tree trunk.

“Not here,” Alex says, although she’s watching Lucy just as carefully. “It’s too exposed.”

Kara nods and holds Lucy’s hand tightly, adjusting the strap of her backpack. 

“As soon as we find somewhere, we can rest,” she says, talking to Lucy more than the others. “Then head back out onto the road tomorrow.”

It’s strange, this take charge attitude coming from Kara. But again, it comes down to what she would  do for the people she loves. And maggie isn’t  _ blind,  _ she knows how Kara feels about Lucy after they had found Lucy alive. She knows Lucy feels the same way. As much as Alex wants to get Kara to Boston, Kara wants Lucy to stay with them until the very end.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Maggie says and Kara nods in her direction before continuing through the trees, still holding Lucy’s hand.

They follow the sound of running water, a faint trickle that gets louder as they walk further into the trees. Only then does Maggie realise how dehydrated she is. It’s become normal over the past months, something she has grown used to. But after everything that had happened, she doesn’t think she’s stopped to pause and drink.

The ground starts to slope upwards and eventually, they reach another clearing and Maggie thinks that her brain is so starved of water that she’s hallucinating. They’re standing on the side of an incline, at the top of which a small waterfall cascades down past a cavern and into the lake below. Even in this world, the sight is breathtaking. 

Without saying a word, they continue up the incline until they come level with the mouth of the cave. The rocks are slippery with fallen leaves and clear spring water but it’s wide enough so they can work their way across in single file. They avoid the torrent of water, the spray dampening their hair, and find themselves in a spacious cave, carved out by centuries of falling water.

Alex lets out an awed breath next to Maggie as she stares through the waterfall and down to the lake, the crash of the water echoing around the clearing. It’s a small piece of the world they left behind, a sanctuary. Here it feels like nothing can find them, like they’re suspended in time, the never space between the apocalypse and the past.

“We should be safe here,” Kara says, her voice a whisper that echoes around the walls of the cave but muffled to the outside world by the water. 

“Good, cause I really don’t wanna leave,” Alex says, putting her backpack against the wall. 

Maggie stands there for a minute as the others retreat into the cave. She closes her eyes and just. Pauses. Stands still. Listens. Takes in the sound of the water, the smell of the clean air, the damp of the cave. The very air seems to tingle with the memory of a world now gone.

She jumps when she feels hands on her waist and her eyes snap open, turning her head to see Kara standing next to her, frowning slightly.

“I was scared you might fall,” Kara says and Maggie steps further back into the cave.

“Sorry.”

Kara follows her towards the back of the cave where Alex has pulled some dry wood out of her backpack and started a fire. The damp air dulls the flames slightly but in a contained area, the warmth is still enough to seep through the fabric of her coat and chase away the chill.

Lucy is resting with her head against her pack, staring up at the ceiling of the cave, watching as the shadows dance across the stone. As the cave warms, Maggie shrugs off her coat and sits down on it, holding her hands to the flames. She doesn’t notice Alex holding out a water bottle until she nudges Maggie’s thigh with it. 

“Thanks,” she says, taking it.

“You haven’t been drinking enough,” Alex says almost like a diagnosis, but there’s an underlying tone of care in her words. “We haven’t really stopped since we arrived at the house.”

“I guess it just slipped my mind,” Maggie says, unable to hold off drinking for another second, taking measured sips to stop her stomach from protesting.

“Yeah, I guess it slipped my mind, too,” Alex says and looks away from Maggie and into the fire, drawing her knees close to her chest. 

Maggie desperately wants to say something to fill the heavy silence between them. She has no idea what, it’s like she’s forgotten how to even speak to Alex, something which had come so easily from the moment they had met. Even if she did know what to say, even if she could find the words to express how sorry she is, how much she wants to just scream at the world  _ fuck you for not giving us time,  _ how much she’s scared she might be better off running from them, she can’t. Not with Lucy and Kara so close, not after everything that has happened.

So she sits there silently watching as the flames rise higher, listening to the cracking of the wood, the soft breathing coming from Lucy. It doesn’t take long for Maggie to lie down against the side of the cave, the exhaustion flooding her body as the adrenaline disappears. Finally, they’ve stopped running. They’re safe, for now. And although everything has changed, although nothing will ever be the same again, they’re alive. In this world, alive is enough.

 

The same sounds she had fallen asleep to are the same sounds she hears when she wakes up what can only be a few hours later. She doesn’t know why she’s suddenly awake but something has tugged her out of her dreamless sleep. 

The fire has died down to just sparks and she pokes the charred logs with the stick by a sleeping Alex, trying to bring it back to life. As the flames take hold again, a shadow is cast on the floor of the cave and Maggie looks up towards the entrance.

Even in the darkness, she can tell it’s Kara sitting there, her legs crossed as she stares out through the waterfall, surveying what is left of the world they’re surviving in. Careful not to wake Alex or Lucy, she stands and makes her way over to Kara, her footsteps loud enough for Kara to notice.

Maggie sits down beside her, taking a deep breath of the cold, clear air. For a while they’re content to sit there in their own world, listening to the sounds around them.

“I thought you were sleeping,” Kara whispers.

“I could say the same about you,” Maggie says. “Why aren’t you? The past few days have been crazy, you need to rest.”

“So do you,” Kara says and Maggie doesn’t really know how to counter that. “I just… my mind feels so  _ full. _ ”

Maggie’s laugh is hollow, holding no humour.

“I know the feeling,” she says and when Kara looks at her, the drive and determination she’s seen on their walk away from the house has disappeared as if it was never really there. “You can talk to me, Kara. You don’t have to, but you can. I’m here for you.”

Kara sighs and when she turns back to look out through the waterfall, a shadow falls across her face. She seems withdrawn and Maggie’s mind is working hard to try and figure out a reason for the silence and the stillness coming from Kara.

“I killed someone.”

The words almost get lost in the sound of crashing water, as quiet as the wind rustling through the trees. And then Maggie understands, those three words putting everything into startling clarity.

There’s fear in Kara’s voice, but there’s also something else, something more. Disappointment is the closest thing Maggie can think of. She knows what Kara is afraid of, knowing who she is or who she was. It’s not that she’s suddenly going to start shooting every bad guy on sight. No, it’s deeper than that and somehow more terrifying to think about.

The heroine of National City, everything that made her so; her willingness to speak out and compromise, the way she would give people a chance to get better, be better, do better. Her heart ruling her head. The legacy of a lost world, the legacy of a once great race carried on the shoulders of a woman who looked just as human as anyone. That person was gone. Supergirl had vanished and Kara remained.

Kara who is everything Supergirl was, except powerless. All she has left is that morality, that intrinsic desire to help and give chances to those who she knew could change. And with one shot, with the blood of one man on her hands, that had all changed, too.

“Kara, you… you did what you had to do,” Maggie says but Kara shakes her head. “You saved Lucy.”

“At the cost of someone else’s life,” Kara says.

“And if you hadn’t, then what would have happened?” Maggie says gently. “Where would… where would Lucy be now?”

“Don’t,” Kara says softly.

“You saved her,” Maggie says again. “And I know this is going to sound… impossible right now and horrible but you would have always done it. As soon as Lucy was in danger, you would have saved her, you’d have done anything to save her.”

Kara turns to look at her, almost scared at the hard truths Maggie is telling her.

“How do you…” She takes a deep breath. “How do you know that?”

“I think you know the answer to that, Kara,” Maggie says, and Kara looks over her shoulder into the cave at the sleeping form of Lucy. “Because people would do anything to save someone they love.”

Kara lets out a shuddering breath, closing her eyes for a long second as the words sink in. 

“I do,” she says quietly. “I love her. I was so scared I’d lost her. And I know this feeling, I’ve felt it before but… this feels so much  _ more _ , it’s like… like my heart isn’t big enough for this. And I’m scared, Maggie, I’m scared to love her.”

It’s like talking to her own reflection. When she looks into Kara’s eyes, she sees herself, her own feelings, reflected back at her. She is so scared to love Alex with all the intensity, all the passion she knows is just waiting to be released from her very soul. But she’s not going to let Kara make the same mistake she did. There doesn’t feel like there’s a way of coming back from breaking Alex’s heart, from saying all those things and then not committing to the free fall. But for Kara and Lucy, it can be different.

“Tell her,” Maggie says. “She knows, she feels it too.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she says. “Tell her while you still can because the world is shitty and depressing and… in this world, it’s everything. So tell her, Kara.”

She’s being a hypocrite and she knows it. Telling Kara to take a chance when she never did. Telling Kara to not give into the fear, to not let the end of the world get in the way of the one good thing she has.

“I can’t believe we found her again,” Kara says in an awed whisper. “Of all the people left in the world, we found Lucy. I can’t let her go again, can I?”

Maggie could say the same about her and Alex. Somehow, they had found each other. And yet, Maggie has let her go. And while they’re here, talking about love and the fear of losing, Maggie can’t hold back anymore.

“Don’t let her go,” Maggie says. “Don’t let her go like I let your sister go. Don’t make my mistake Kara, because… because it freaking  _ kills _ . Just… be the person I wish I could be for Alex. Be that person for Lucy.”

If it comes as a shock to Kara, she doesn’t show it. How can it be a shock when Kara knows her sister better than anyone? Most of the anger and the sadness from Alex can be linked back to something Maggie has said, something Maggie has caused on her selfish quest to protect Alex from being hurt even more. And she knows Kara isn’t going to let this lie.

“Everything you’ve just said to me,” she starts. “All that stuff about not giving into fear, about taking a chance… why don’t you listen to yourself?”

“Because it’s too late for me, for us,” Maggie says. “I fucked it all up, I…” 

“You don’t strike me as someone who backs down when things get scary,” Kara says. “So why is this any different?”

“Because this time, it’s not just me who might get hurt,” Maggie says. “Just as you protected Lucy, I’m protecting Alex. This world is dangerous, it’s unpredictable, anything could happen. One day you’re alive and the next… everything could start and then everything could end. And she has to be there for you, Kara. I can’t love Alex and lose her.”

“That’s not your choice,” Kara says and powers on when Maggie opens her mouth to say that it’s the choice she has made. “It isn’t. Alex can’t stop loving you, she won’t stop just because you’ve decided what you think is best.”

Maggie’s throat closes up as she tries to stop her emotions from getting the better of her. She knows, deep down, that she too will never stop loving Alex. She’ll never stop caring for her. She’ll never stop wishing that she could take back everything she had said, take back giving into the fear. She wants to be brave, more than anything she wants to let herself, for once, be free to love and love  _ loud _ .

“You told me not to give in to the fear,” Kara says. “The world’s ending and we don’t have much time left. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. But you know that Alex loves you. She knows you love her, too. So focus on that. Focus on what you have, what you could have, rather than what you might lose. We’re running out of time, Maggie. So you can’t afford to be scared. If you let yourself, you can be happy.”

Maggie lets out a shaky breath which turns to mist as it reaches the spray of water rising up from the mouth of the cave. As she sits there, absorbing what Kara has said, it feels nothing like the end of the world. It feels like they’re the only four people left in existence, but it doesn’t feel like the end. It feels like the start of something new. As if Kara’s words have ignited something inside her, a driving force, cataclysmic realisation that what she had once said to Alex was never, ever going to last.

“Life’s short, Kara,” Maggie says, her voice small.

“And you can’t let fear hold you back, you can’t let it stop you from making the most of the time we have left,” Kara says.

“I have to talk to Alex,” Maggie says and now the words hold a terrifying weight of possibility. “She has to know.”

“She deserves to know,” Kara says. “All my life she’s taken care of me. Protected me. Even if this is the end of the world, she deserves to have you by her side through whatever time we have left.”

“She deserves better than me,” Maggie says with a humourless laugh.

“You’re good for her, Maggie,” Kara says, the excitement now evident in her voice. “You saved us, you gave Alex even more drive to get to where we’re going. You were more than just help, you were… well, I don’t know what you were, what you are to Alex except someone she would give everything for.”

Thunder rumbles loud and clear above them and in the silence, the rain starts to pour again, drops echoing around the walls of the cave. They shuffle back undercover, watching as the rain mixes with the waterfall, lightning illuminating their surroundings and casting Kara’s face into sharp relief. 

“You know what I think?” Kara says, checking to see if Alex is awake. 

“What?”

“I think even if the world hadn’t ended, you two would have found each other,” Kara says like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “Somehow, I don’t know how but… I think you would have found Alex.”

Of all the things Kara has said, this is what hits Maggie the hardest. She knows Kara isn’t just saying this to persuade Maggie to take a chance, she knows she’s not saying it  _ just because _ . Kara believes it. And, if she thinks about it, if she lets the rain wash away all of the fear and the pain and the longing… Maggie believes it, too. 

And if this is the way she has met Alex Danvers, at the end of days with the world falling apart around them, then that can be enough. In this moment, right here, right now, it doesn’t matter that she hasn’t met Alex when the sun had been shining and the world was still turning around them. 

In this moment as the thunder claps overhead, she’s reminded that they’re still miles from Boston, from saving Kara. She’s stuck at the end of the world with Alex Danvers.

And Maggie feels like the luckiest person left on Earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was honestly one of my favourite chapters of anything i've done to write. you guys have been so patient and supportive of the slow burn, so yeah... not long to wait now. thank you for sticking with me on this angsty ride but as always, there is some light at the end of the road.


	21. now or never

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this update took so long but life, ya know? and i really had to do this chapter justice...

By morning, the rain has passed leaving the air cool and clear. It wasn’t the echoes of the rainfall that had kept Maggie awake last night, long after Kara had moved to the comfort of Lucy’s side. Her heart had felt like it was going to beat out of her chest whenever she had tried to lie down, filled with intense burning impatience.

As grey light reflects off the water falling outside the cave, she feels as though she can breathe again. She feels as though she’s allowed to breathe again.

Because now she knows what she has to do, what she  _ wants  _ to do. No barriers. No excuses. It was time for the truth. She had thought falling in love with Alex had made her a coward but as she sits against the wall of the cave, poking at the fire, she realises that it has done the exact opposite. She feels brave again. 

She can’t imagine herself confessing anything of this scale to anyone  _ but  _ Alex. It was the end of everything and she had made her excuses about time and loss and fear. But none of that applied anymore, not with Alex. She has let go, not of the love, but of the fear holding her back.

She can do this. She wants to do this.

Here, at the end of the world, she wants Alex.

Maggie allows herself this moment of peace before the others wake. She uses it to gather her thoughts, to try and think of what she’s going to say to Alex when they finally get a moment alone. But she’s sure that however much she plans, her heart is going to speak for her. That idea doesn’t scare her as much as it once would have. 

She watches the light from the fire cast shadows over Alex’s face as she sleeps. Her hair has started to grow out again, curling at the ends. She looks younger than Maggie has ever seen her, with her eyes closed and the ghosts hidden.

It’s then that Maggie is struck by just how beautiful Alex is. Of course, she’s noticed before but now, with no reason to force her feelings away, she’s suddenly seeing so much  _ more _ . Accepting that it is okay to feel this way about Alex.

As much as she wants, needs, Alex to wake up, she would also happily spend the rest of whatever time they have left watching her sleep so peacefully.

But then, like she’s jinxed it, Alex shifts slowly, her brow furrowing and producing the same crinkle Kara gets. Maggie looks away, back at the fire before she can be caught staring. She catches Alex stretching out of the corner of her eye and eventually, she sits up against the wall of the cave.

“How long have you been awake?” Alex yawns, bringing her knees to her chest, still under the warmth of the sleeping bag.

“Not long,” Maggie lies.

Now that Alex is awake, it suddenly seems so much more real. That she will, today, finally, tell Alex that she isn’t scared anymore. That she wants Alex and she isn’t afraid to want her. But at the same time, watching Alex, remembering how heartbroken she had sounded back at the house, her stomach feels sick as she imagines the ‘what if’. What if Alex no longer wants her? What if Alex has been too hurt? What if she’s too late?

She glances across at Alex and finds her watching Kara and Lucy who are still sound asleep. A flicker of a smile crosses her face and she sighs, before turning back to the fire.

“It’s nice they have each other,” Maggie says, resting her arms on her knees.

“Yeah, it is,” Alex whispers, staring resolutely into the flames.

Maggie can only stare at her, completely entranced, the words burning her tongue and she opens her mouth to speak -

“We need more water,” Alex says, unzipping the sleeping bag and climbing to her feet. 

The moment is lost and Maggie can’t be sure that she even had the time to think of what to say before Alex had interrupted. Maybe that’s a good thing. Now she has more time. Alex picks up a few things from her pack and wanders to the mouth of the cave, disappearing around the side and for a few minutes, Maggie thinks she’s gone without her but she spots the water canteens lying around the cave.

Alex returns, her hair slightly damp from the spray of the water hitting the cliff face, her face clear of the dirt which had lined it after running through the woods. 

“I’ll come with you,” Maggie says, throwing the stick onto the fire as she stands and Alex watches her carefully. “I”m not letting you wander around out there without someone on your six,” she adds before Alex can voice an objection. “We’ve learnt our lesson, right?”

Alex zips up her jacket and grabs the water canteens and gun.

“We’ll walk back down to the lake,” she says. “Try and see a path forward while we’re there.”

Maggie grabs her own pack which contains the iodine drops they’ve been using and her shotgun. She’s not taking any chances, not now she’s so close to what could be the only good thing to come from the end of the world.

They walk out of the cave, Alex bent over slightly as they step out onto the ledge behind the waterfall. She straightens up and stares through the water to the trees surrounding the small lake below. Maggie leads the way across the ledge, her hands gripping the wet face of the cliff as they make their way slowly to the slope. When they reach the safety of the trees, she turns back to check Alex is still with her and finds her looking back the way they’ve just come.

“They’ll be fine,” Maggie says, half-reaching out to touch Alex’s arm to bring her back to the moment. “You can’t see the cave from here.”

Alex takes a deep breath and turns back to her, choosing to trust Maggie rather than give in to the fears always at the forefront of her mind. She leads them down the slope, bracing herself against the trees, the ripped bark marking her hands. 

When they reach the bottom and walk around the edge of the lake, she looks up and her breath is momentarily taken away at the sight of the waterfall cascading down into the lake, sending spray into the air, the sound echoing around the woods. 

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Alex says next to her, staring up at where the cave is set into the cliff face, completely hidden by the waterfall.

“What is?”

“That we could find somewhere so…” the word doesn’t come, but Maggie understands anyway; there’s nothing really to say about it. It just  _ is _ . “After everything we’ve seen. When you know what the rest of the world looks like. And there’s places like this, hidden away.”

“Yeah,” is all she can say to that. 

It’s how she feels about Alex. That with so much death and destruction, something there is no coming back from, she has found just a piece of hope. When she looks at Alex, the same as when she had looked at the sight in front of them, the rest of the world melts away.

“I wish we could stay here,” Alex says, so quietly that Maggie almost misses it over the rush of the water. “It’s stupid but… I wish we could stay here and grow old and leave the rest of the world to just… disappear. Who cares about what’s out there? There’s so much to look out for, to be scared of… it would be so easy to just stay here.”

Alex’s voice turns to a whisper, as if she’s worried that if she says it loud enough, she’ll give in and do exactly that. The worst part is that they have no choice. At some point, they’ll move on from this place and never return. They won’t even look back. They will leave and continue their journey and the waterfall, the lake, the trees will remain long after they vanish from the world.

It’s all the more reason for this to be the time that Maggie takes the plunge.

Just as she reaches out to touch Alex’s arm, to provide some kind of comfort, Alex bends down and places the water canteen under the surface of lake. Every part of Maggie is screaming at her to just say it and say it now. Alex stands up, screwing the top back onto the bottle and stares out across the lake. 

“Even though we have to leave I’m glad we found this place,” she says. “I’m glad I got to see it with you.”

Maggie’s heart swells in her chest, even when Alex realises what she’s said and lowers her head, like she can’t believe she let the words slip out after their conversation back at the house. The conversation Maggie wishes she could erase so Alex wouldn’t feel the pain of believing that Maggie would never give them the chance they deserved.

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” Maggie says and watches as Alex fiddles with the strap of the water canteen. “When… when Lucy showed up, I thought about leaving you.”

Alex glances up at her, eyes wide. It wasn’t what Maggie had expected to say, but her brain is no longer in control of her words. Her heart is.

“Why would you do that?” Alex says, the water bottle hanging loosely in her hand, her voice soft with anger.

“Because I didn’t think there was a reason for me to stay,” Maggie says honestly. “Your old friend was back and she could help you more than I could, she could help you and Kara get to Boston.”

“We’d have still needed you,” Alex says and Maggie lets out a breath, grateful for the pause so she can figure out how to say what she needs to. “You saved our lives time and time again. You… it’s more than that, okay? It’s more than you saving us because… when we met you, it was like finding this place,” Alex says, gesturing around them. “We met you and there was hope again. The rest of the world melted away. We met you and the world changed. Just because Lucy came back, doesn’t mean that we… doesn’t mean that  _ I _ don’t need you.”

Maggie swallows the lump in her throat and her body hums with anticipation for what she’s about to say and never be able to take back. She needs Alex to stay and listen to her, not to run like she had so wanted to when she had first fallen for Alex.

“It wasn’t just about that,” Maggie says quietly.

They both know how the other feels. Alex knows that Maggie has been carrying around her feelings for so long now. She knows that Maggie wants her, she knows that Maggie is scared. And she’s still scared. But not enough to run. Not enough to stand by and watch as Alex fades away. What Alex doesn’t know, what she should have known weeks ago if Maggie hadn’t fought against her own emotions, is that Maggie is taking the plunge.

“I thought that if I stayed with you, I would…” She takes a breath and Alex watches her with wide, brown eyes that wash away the fear and ground her. “I would fall more in love with you. And I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.”

“Don’t,” Alex whispers. “You’ve said this, you’ve already… don’t make me hear it again.”

“No, I’m not, I… I’m not,” Maggie says, wanting to just come out and say it but she has to do this properly. “I wanted to leave because I was scared to fall in love with you… I was too scared to love and then lose and I knew that when I told you that, you’d just get hurt -”

“And I wouldn’t have let you leave,” Alex says, her voice breaking slightly. “If you had told me that, I wouldn’t have let you leave because you don’t get to quit on us, ever. Yeah, I’m hurt, Maggie. But no way would I have let you leave, you don’t get to walk away because I’m not going to break. So if this is you saying you’re leaving, I’m telling you no.”

“I’m not,” Maggie says and Alex watches her like she’s trying to read her mind. “I’m not leaving you, Alex. I’m never leaving, okay? You have me, that’s what I’m trying to say. You…  you have me.”

“I thought -”

“You have me,” Maggie says again and this time she takes a step forward, her whole body shaking with the importance, the strength, the weight of what she is about to say, confess and never take back.

“What does that mean?” Alex breathes.

“It means I’m not scared anymore,” Maggie says. “This is the world we’re living in and we can’t change that. And that terrified me but then I found you and you’re here and… life is short. Life is short and I… I want you. This could be too late, I know, I know I was a coward but… what I’m saying is you have me, Alex, if you still want me. Here, right now, at the end of the world, you have me and I’m all in.”

The sound of her heartbeat matches the intensity of the water crashing around them. She can’t stop looking at Alex, watching, waiting, it feels like time has stopped. And the longer it stays frozen, the more the panic starts to rise up from her gut, overwhelming her relief at having finally said it. Alex isn’t looking at her, not really, her eyes focussed on a middle distance between them, and the longer the silence drags on, the more the panic starts to build.

“Alex… say something, please,” Maggie whispers, looking down at the wet rocks they’re standing on, trying to focus on the scuff marks on her boots rather than the sound of Alex’s breathing as she processes what Maggie has just said. “I know, I should have thought all of this sooner, I’m sorry and if you can’t trust me or you don’t want me, I -”

Alex kisses her and the world explodes into colour.

The gap between them is closed so suddenly that Maggie slips on the wet ground slightly, but then Alex’s hands are there on her waist, steadying her. There’s a million things to feel all at once and Maggie doesn’t know where to begin, whether on the softness of Alex’s lips, the sound of her heart thrumming against her ribs, her hand cupping Alex’s elbow to draw her closer, the way their noses bump against each others as the kiss, inevitably, deepens. 

Every nerve in her body feels like it’s on fire, the raw passion seeping into every crack the apocalypse had made, filling them, healing her, because right now, as she stops kissing Alex to draw breath, the end of the world no longer matters.

She rests her forehead against Alex’s, her eyes closed as air fills her lungs, her hands scrunching the fabric of Alex’s jacket. The sheer  _ need  _ to see Alex makes her open her eyes, but Alex’s are still closed, the faintest hint of a smile tracing her lips as she too absorbs the magnitude of what has just happened. Maggie brushes her thumb against her cheek and slowly, like she’s afraid everything will disappear if she does, Alex opens her eyes and lets out a shaky breath.

“So, what I’m getting from that is you want me?”

Maggie laughs, shaking her head in amusement against Alex’s, running her hands to her shoulders and then back to cup her face and draw Alex into another kiss, slower this time.

“Yeah, I do,” Maggie says when they part again. “It took me too long to let myself feel it and I was scared I’d missed my chance. And if I had… I’d have forgiven myself.”

“You’re worth the wait,” Alex says. “Not just this part but… twenty-eight years and then the end of the world until I found you. Worth every second.”

It’s then that it all hits her. 

It’s way Alex is staring at her with warm, brown eyes and all that love she has held back because she thought Maggie was too scared to give them a chance chasing away the hurt. It’s the way that they’re still standing so close that Maggie can taste the mint from the toothpaste they had salvaged from the bunker on Alex’s breath. It’s the way she can’t hold back any longer, the fact she doesn’t  _ have  _ to hold back from kissing Alex, so she does, again.

It doesn’t matter that she’s met Alex at the end of the world. Because she knows that from this moment onwards, every second, however many seconds, they have left will be worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and everything is going to be fine from now on! right?..... RIGHT????
> 
> 61k words later and there you have it. please let me know what you think because i'm so nervous about posting this chapter. i will try to update faster but there's so much going on right now i struggle to find time


	22. the glitter and the slums

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your comments on the last chapter! i was so nervous about the reaction it would get...
> 
> anyway, onwards! remember how i said it would all be fine....

Alex almost forgets about the water. 

She’s so entranced by Maggie, Maggie who had kissed her, who had told her that she was all in, that here at the end of the world all she wanted was Alex. She’s captivated by the memory of Maggie’s lips on hers, her heart pounding a furious pace at the ghost of the feeling it had conjured deep inside her, this feeling of complete security and hope. Something she hasn’t felt in  _ months _ . In fact, she’s not even sure if she’s ever felt this way before. 

It’s strange, to go back to collecting water when their task had been interrupted by something so earth-shattering and life changing. All she wants to do is kiss Maggie, hold her,  _ feel _ everything and press pause on the world around them. It feels as though everything they’re doing should have been altered, but the reality was that they were still on the same journey. Only now that journey doesn’t feel so lonely and exhausting.

“We should get back to the others,” Maggie says after a long silence; she’s still smiling and Alex just  _ stares _ because she is so drawn in by everything Maggie does. 

They stare out across the lake, but the longer they stay there, the harder it will be to leave. Maggie takes her hand, pulling Alex away from the edge of the lake and they make their way back up the slope to the ledge by the cave.

Before they pass underneath the waterfall, Maggie turns Alex towards her and kisses her again. Alex’s heart jumps in her chest at the feeling and she sinks into it, allowing it to consume her before they part and the moment is gone. 

Kara and Lucy have the fire going inside the cave but the warmth Alex feels inside her chest isn’t anything to do with the flames. The sight of their sleeping bags and blankets packed away sends a sharp, painful reminder of reality through Alex. And then Maggie squeezes her hand and it melts away, for now. 

She doesn’t want to leave this place. She’s never had a reason to want to stay behind somewhere before now, before Maggie. But it doesn’t change the fact that they have to move on.

“We… went to get water,” Alex says to the unasked question from the other two sitting against the back wall of the cave, holding up the water canteens in her other hand.

It’s then that Kara notices her other hand is holding Maggie’s and her eyes widen, a grin spreading across her face, so nearly the same as Alex remembers it if it wasn’t for the hollowness in Kara’s cheeks.

“About time,” Lucy says and Alex lets out a huff but can’t stop herself from grinning too, the muscles in her face aching from lack of use; she’s never had more of a reason to feel this way.

“Could say the same for you,” Alex says, looking between her friend and her sister and Kara turns red. 

“Leave them alone,” Maggie mutters, nudging Alex with her shoulder. “Lucy’s right, it  _ is  _ about time.”

Alex doesn’t care how long it took now they’re here. She has the rest of the time in the world to spend with Maggie and that is more than she thinks she deserves. But she doesn’t miss the glance between Kara and Maggie and she has a sneaking suspicion that Maggie may just been pushed in the right direction by Kara at some point. 

“We have to move on, don’t we?” Kara says and her smile disappears for a second. 

“You know we do,” Alex says. “We’re close, I promise.”

It’s never felt like this before. It’s never felt so close, so tangible.

Lucy stamps out the fire and they each grab their packs. Alex lingers at the cave entrance, her legs suddenly feeling like lead. She stares through the waterfall to the distorted trees beyond. She can barely imagine what the world is like beyond this moment.

“Alex?” Maggie places a hand on her arm gently coaxing her away from the cave. “Let’s go.”

They make their way down the slope and around the lake, past the spot where Maggie had finally told Alex how she felt, where they had finally kissed. Where the world had changed. None of them are sure where they’re going, only back down to the road. 

A day’s rest has done Lucy a world of good; she’s no longer lethargic, her strides are more purposeful as she leads the way with Kara back through the forest, the ground levelling out as they get closer to the road. Alex hangs back with Maggie, content for now to just enjoy the feeling of Maggie’s hand in hers as they walk.

The road, with it’s cracked tarmac, faded white lines and rusted, bullet-ridden signs, feels completely different, too. It’s somehow brighter. It holds more meaning than before.

Because Alex isn’t just on this road for Kara anymore. She isn’t just staying alive for Kara. She’s staying alive for Maggie, too, she’s staying alive and fighting to have a future with Maggie. A future they can only have if they make it to Boston, if they find the cure.

She had never thought about what she would do if they made it and Kara was saved. She had never given the idea any mind, not because she didn’t think they would make it, but because she couldn’t think past anything but saving her sister.

And now, the future is all she can think about. Having Maggie by her side, having Maggie take up so much space in her heart, has changed everything. She’s opened so many possibilities even in a world that has ended.

 

***

They cover more ground in a couple of days than ever before. There’s no hiding the reason as to why; the four of them have something more to hold onto, more than basic survival. More than getting somewhere safe just to carry on living in a world that was so empty.

They carry along the road for miles and miles, the rusted signs enough of a clue as to where they are, that they’re still going east. They pass through ghost towns, past hospitals and gas stations and schools. They don’t search in any of them. It’s not worth the risk, not when they have so much to live for now.

And they don’t have to risk their lives for the danger to find them.

As they pass through an abandoned amusement park, somewhere near the east coast, they narrowly avoid a group of bounty hunters, cannibals, they don’t know. But they’re sure they’re not  good people. They hide in one of the arcades, keeping silent for hours until they can be sure the dangers passed and they can move on again.

“We’re safe,” Alex says. “Let’s get moving.”

But after that, they return to their old ways of walking single file, more tense, eyes darting around for any sign of movement. They know that this is the way it has to be, but only until they find somewhere safe to stay for the night.

They leave the amusement park far behind, stopping just after nightfall in an abandoned, run down church. Alex takes a note of the town name on the sign they had passed earlier, waiting until they’re safely inside before taking out the map.

She holds it as close to the fire as she can get, tracing a finger along the lines until she finds the place she’s looking for and her heart jumps in her chest. 

“We’re that close?” Maggie says from where she’s looking over her shoulder. Alex leans back into the touch, resting her head against the side of Maggie’s.

“Yeah,” is all Alex can breathe out, staring at the map. 

They’ve made it this far. All the way from the burning wreckage of National City, through losing J’onn and Winn somewhere in Nevada, to meeting Maggie in Nebraska, finding Lucy in Ohio, finding…  _ love  _ in some other worldly paradise. 

They’ve made it to the other side of the country, but it feels like the other side of the world. There’s no going back. There’s only the finish line and the end of the task Alex had set out to do, saving Kara even if it cost her everything. 

“You did it, Alex,” Maggie says, running her fingers through Alex’s hair, hearing the way her breaths come faster, so completely overwhelmed by the feeling of succeeding in what she had set out to do. “You did it.”

They’re not there yet. There’s still miles to go, but they made it to the coast, closer than ever before and they just need a few more days. A few more days where no one attacks them, no one steals Kara away. 

But, of course, people aren’t the only things standing in their way.

From the depths of the church, Kara’s coughs echo off the crumbling stone walls, sounding louder and more painful as the sound reverberates. Alex’s back goes tense under Maggie’s hand, and she tears her eyes away from the map, eyes darting around, trying to find Kara in the darkness.

She knows she’s safe, Lucy’s with her, helping her search for something they could use, even though there’s nothing more they really need. All Alex needs is the cure for Kara. And that is still miles north in Boston. 

Kara doesn’t stop coughing. Each one goes through Alex like she too is experiencing the pain of whatever the virus is doing to Kara’s lungs and heart. 

And then she hears a cry of her name, not from Kara, but Lucy’s voice, clear and sharp and panicked and then she’s off, pulling away from the warmth Maggie provides and into the shadows. She can hear Maggie following behind her, checking the small alcoves until the coughing gets louder and louder and they spill into a dark, almost empty side room.

“Kara?”

She can just make out the forms of Kara and Lucy, huddled on the stone steps. There’s a clicking sound and the room is illuminated by the flame from the lighter in Maggie’s hand. It’s enough to see Kara doubled over, her head between her knees, hands on the back of her head, pulling at her hair.

All the warmth rushes out of Alex in one breath. This was the reality. Harsh and unforgiving. She has Maggie, Kara has Lucy, they all have each other. But they have each other in a world where Kara is still dying.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’ll pass,” Lucy’s saying, over and over again, tears in her voice. 

Alex kneels down in front of Kara and when Maggie stands over her shoulder, she sees the reason Lucy had called out. The flames catch in the deep crimson puddle between Kara’s feet, and it feels like the world is ending all over again.

This cannot be happening. Kara can’t be getting worse, not now, not when they’re so close. She can’t make it this far and have it all be for nothing. 

“Hey, Kara, look at me,” Alex says gently, resting her hand on Kara’s knee.

Kara looks up, tear tracks streaking her cheeks and Alex tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. 

“Can you tell me what hurts?” Alex says softly.

Kara goes to open her mouth but as soon as she breathes in, she doubles over again, coughing louder than before. It sounds like her lungs are tearing up. 

Maggie watches as Lucy rubs small circles on Kara’s back, trying to soothe the painful coughs, calm the jerking motions Kara makes as her body attacks itself from the inside. She pushes the water bottle into Alex’s hands.

There’s nothing they can do but wait. And eventually, the coughing stops. Kara’s body crumbles into Lucy’s side, trembling, her face damp with sweat and tears. Alex unscrews the water bottle and presses it to Kara’s lips, watching her take small sips until she pushes it away. The whole time, Lucy has her lips pressed to Kara’s temple.

Slowly, they move back to the main room where the fire has died down. Maggie starts it up again and Kara lies down as close to it as possible. Alex can only look at her sister like this for so long. She stands up and walks to the edges of the room, Lucy too busy watching Kara sleep to notice.

She’s pulled into the warmth and comfort of Maggie’s arms only moments later. She savours every second because she knows that when she pulls away, she has to go back to the reality of her sister dying. She has to hold on to the good as long as she can.

“She’s running out of time,” Alex whispers into Maggie’s shoulder. 

When she pulls back, she can see pain etched into the lines on Maggie’s face, far from the joy that had radiated from her over the past couple of days. Maggie knows she can’t possibly be hurting as much as Alex, but like she had said months ago, Kara is like her sister now, too.

“How long?” Maggie asks.

“Days,” Alex says and her voice breaks. “She has days and we’re not close enough.”

“Then we don’t stop,” Maggie says. “We don’t stop for anything and we’ll get there.”

Alex wipes her nose on her sleeve, leaning into Maggie again. 

“I can’t lose her,” she says. “Not now, not… not ever. We’re almost there. She can’t… not now.”

“Whatever happens, I’m here,” Maggie says. “However hard it is, however much we think we can’t go on, we will. We’re going to get Kara to Boston and find that cure, no matter what it takes.”

Alex wishes she held the same belief. She’s not even sure if Maggie does or whether she’s just trying to bring Alex back from the brink. She looks over to where Kara and Lucy are and finds Lucy looking over at them.

“We can’t tell Kara,” Alex says to Maggie. “She can’t think that this is the end, even if she’s in this much pain. We have to stay strong, for her. Because the only way we’re getting to Boston is if Kara believes she can make it.”

Maggie considers this for a moment but then nods, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. 

“Kara always needed me to believe in her the most,” Alex says and finally looks back at Maggie. “But I don’t think that’s true anymore. She needs all of us. She needs her family.”

“She’ll always have it, Alex,” Maggie says softly. “To the end of the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic has been such a journey, for both the characters and myself. we're coming to the end now, only about 5 more chapters to go. i really hope you all stick around for the ending, because it will be worth it. i'm not gonna pull a CW and ruin the good, don't you worry. 
> 
> thank you for all your support and as always, come talk to me about my fics at llucylane on tumblr if you want! my ask is always open


	23. day & age

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know, i know, it's not the usual two week break but i ended up writing most of this at midnight and it turned out half decent so... yay! start the countdown, only 6 chapters to go...
> 
> kara, sweetie, i'm so sorry, i'm so sorry some ugly ass bitch (me) would do something like this

They have to move on as soon as it’s light.

None of them had slept well, Kara’s coughing keeping all of them awake, mostly through fear. It had sounded even worse in the cavernous church, bouncing off the walls, echoing even after it had passed. She had apologised in a painfully raw voice but secretly, Maggie would rather hear Kara cough and know she was still alive, than lie there in the silence wondering if they had really run out of time.

Of course, she would rather there was no need to hear Kara in pain to know she was alive.

This whole journey of Alex and Kara’s, the whole reason behind it… it incensed her, it made her blood  _ boil _ . Each day since Lucy had told them about Cadmus, the hatred had risen inside her and become stronger. It’s nothing compared to what Alex must be feeling.

Maggie is so focussed on Alex striding ahead, leading the way, trying not to imagine what would happen if they didn’t make it, to notice where exactly Alex is taking them. Lucy hasn’t noticed either, her sole focus on Kara and making sure she keeps walking.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Maggie asks, jogging to catch up with Alex. 

She doesn’t even turn to look at Maggie or slow down. Maggie doesn’t blame her, she knows all Alex can see is their goal and if she turns away for even a second, her whole belief that they’re going to make it will shatter.

“We’re going back to the beach,” Alex says, hiking her pack onto her shoulder more securely. “And we go north from there. I’m not getting lost in some forest or caught by some maniacs on the road. I won’t let them take her.”

She isn’t even sure Alex knows if she’s talking to herself or to Maggie. It doesn’t make much of a difference. Maggie doesn’t point out that walking along the beach would leave them exposed, she knows better than to try and dissuade Alex. And she knows, she trusts, that Alex has considered their options carefully; now more than ever, she’s determined to make the right choice.

But, even Alex knows they have to stop when the darkness falls.

They end up camped out at a gas station not too far from the beach if the spray of sand on the forecourt is anything to go by. Maggie is hesitant, remembering all too clearly what had happened the last time they had taken shelter in a place like this.

All of that seems a lifetime ago. They’ve all changed so much that it might as well be.

Alex sits by Kara’s side, stroking her hair and occasionally wiping a piece of cloth she tore from her own shirt across Kara’s forehead, dampened by some of their water. Lucy sits on the other side of the flames, watching. Maggie knows she’s itching to take over from Alex, but she can’t; just like Maggie, she gets that the bond between the Danvers sisters isn’t something they can ever fully understand.

Eventually though, it seems Lucy can’t sit still anymore. She stands up and walks back out onto the forecourt and with a reassuring look at Alex, Maggie follows her.

She finds Lucy sitting with her back against one of the empty gas pumps, arms wrapped around her knees that are pulled against her chest.

Maggie waits for Lucy to say the first word as she sits down next to her, staring out across the road and past the small line of trees to where the beach awaits. 

“Does Alex think we’re going to make it?” she asks, her voice as quiet as the wind that blows fine grains of sand across the tarmac. 

“I don’t know,” Maggie says honestly. “Even if she doesn’t really, she’s believing it anyway. She has to. I… I don’t know what would happen if she didn’t.”

“Typical,” Lucy says with a short laugh. “She’s always been like that. Stubborn. Blinded, when it comes to Kara.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Maggie says.

“It’s not,” Lucy says. “But I was always worried that one day, Alex would be so…  _ Alex,  _ that she would go and get herself killed if it would save Kara.”

Maggie’s insides turn to ice; there’s no reason to worry that Alex would do the same here, but all the same… she knows Lucy is right. Alex’s sole objective is to save her sister and it would be foolish, selfish, to ask her to fight to stay alive for someone else if she had to sacrifice everything to save Kara.

“Do you think we’ll make it?” Lucy asks, glancing at Maggie.

“I trust Alex,” Maggie says.

“That’s not an answer,” Lucy whispers, her voice breaking and Maggie knows that Lucy is struggling to keep the faith, too. “We have to make it. We have to save Kara, we have to save Kara so Cadmus never take her away. I won’t let Cadmus win, I won’t -”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Maggie says, surprised at the sudden rage coming from Lucy, resting a hand on her shoulder to try and calm her.

Lucy takes a deep breath, closing her eyes, her head thudding back against the gas pump.

“Who the hell are Cadmus, Lucy?” Maggie asks. “I know what you said before, anti-alien, rogue government project. But there’s more, isn’t there?”

Lucy keeps her eyes focussed on the road, staring hard into nothing. Maggie doesn’t press, doesn’t move, she just waits. There’s no way Lucy is reacting like this because of what she’s told them already.

“Project Cadmus wasn’t just linked to any government agency,” Lucy says. “It was linked to the DEO, it was where aliens were taken to so the government could experiment on them and create weapons, biopower, genetic enhancements…”

“But you… Alex…”

“She never knew,” Lucy says quickly. “No one did, except the top players. My father was one of them,” she adds bitterly. “But the agents didn’t know, Alex was never a part of it.”

Maggie lets out a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Maggie,” Lucy continues. “And not standing up against Cadmus from the start is one of the biggest. I was part of a team who sent J’onn and Alex to Cadmus for treason. And then I saved them from it because Cadmus… they were everything I hated. A reminder of the lies people like my father had built to keep the public unaware of what actually goes on under their government.”

She remembers Alex saying once that Lucy had arrested her; she had never expected it to be something as serious as this. But the anger she expects to feel towards Lucy never comes. 

“When I left the DEO I dedicated everything to trying to stop Cadmus,” Lucy says. “I fought battles in DC, I went against people I used to work for, people I used to be  _ proud  _ to work for just so I could get them to take Cadmus going rogue seriously. And it didn’t work. And look where we are now. Fighting a war we can’t even win because the world fucking ended and Cadmus used it to their advantage. We could have stopped that virus  _ months _ before the apocalypse if people had bothered to try and find them, if we had given the DEO the resources it needed…”

Maggie can see why Lucy and Alex hadn’t got on when they had first met; both stubborn as hell, driven, uncompromising when it came to something they believed in. They’re the same reasons they had become such good friends in the end.

“People only accept that bad things are happening when it’s too late,” Lucy says. “Global warming, nuclear threats… and then Cadmus. When they released the virus, when  _ humans _ started dying, that’s when people listened.”

It’s not difficult to believe; Maggie’s not stupid, she knows the same thing has been happening for years, rich white men only caring when they were going to be the ones hurt. It makes rage fill her like lava. It’s bad enough watching it from the sidelines, but to be in Lucy’s position, right in the middle of it… that takes some kind of strength.

“So we started making cures, running experiments,” Lucy says. “Found a link between blood types and the effects the virus would have. And we were so close, people weren’t getting cured but it was close. And then the funding stopped, the aid stopped, everything  _ stopped _ and we were ran out of DC by fires and riots.”

“So there was a cure?” Maggie says, holding her breath, unable to believe Lucy hadn’t mentioned this before now.

“No, that’s the thing, it wasn’t a cure,” Lucy says. “People were still dying. And then there were rumours of it restarting in Boston so I went to see if I could help, give them  _ something _ , but…”

She drifts off and it all falls into place. Maggie sinks against the gas pump, staring into the same space Lucy is. 

“You got caught,” she says and Lucy nods out of the corner of her eye. “How close were you?”

“Not as close as we are now,” Lucy says. “This… this doesn’t seem real, almost.”

“Have you told Kara any of this?” Maggie asks, thinking back to the time Lucy had first dropped the Cadmus bombshell.

“No, I… I didn’t want to upset her or… or get Alex’s hopes up,” Lucy says quietly. “I knew that if I said we had been running experimental cures, she might think that Boston would hold all the answers, it would be exactly what she needs it to be. And if we got there, and… and it’s not that…”

She doesn’t say anything else but Maggie understands. The feeling of not wanting to let anyone down. Lucy had nearly made it to Boston, with her knowledge of an experiment that had almost succeeded. She just hadn’t made it far enough. 

Of course, if she had made it, she might not be here now.

“I would never forgive myself,” Lucy says. “And besides, I can’t be sure there was anything in Boston. I had no idea. It could all have been burnt down, taken over by Cadmus… this is dangerous, Maggie, way more so than cannibals and whatever else.”

Maggie doesn’t need Lucy to tell her that; if there’s nothing at the end of the road, it will kill Alex just the same as if she had been caught by bounty hunters.

They sit there in silence for a while longer, staring out at the ocean. She gets why Lucy never said anything, told them that she just happened to get caught in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t make her annoyed at the woman, in fact, it’s the opposite. She has even more respect for her now.

To not tell the woman she so clearly loves that her life might be saved if they get to Boston? That there were experiments being done? That there is a  _ chance _ it could work, but equally there could be nothing?

Maggie can’t imagine what Lucy is going through every time she looks at Kara. Every time Kara coughs. 

She knows that Alex has been thinking the exact same; not wanting to get her hopes up, but not wanting to believe this is all for nothing. If Lucy tells her what she’s told Maggie, it will tip Alex one way or the other. And whichever way she falls could spell the end of everything.

She pushes herself to her feet, turning away from the ocean.

“Maggie?”

She turns back to look at Lucy and offers her a hand up, knowing that it wasn’t what Lucy was asking for. 

“Don’t tell Alex,” Lucy says. “I can’t… she’ll hate me for not telling her, not giving her some kind of… expectation, however it turns out.”

And even though her blood runs cold at the thought, she knows it’s for the best. It’s going to keep Alex alive and fighting, and Kara, too.

“I won’t,” Maggie says, pulling Lucy to her feet. “But she wouldn’t hate you. Alex cares about you, and you know that, deep down. You wouldn’t lose her. She’s losing Kara. And that, for anyone, is enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this wasn't as angsty as it could have been, trust me.
> 
> *whispers* please still stay with me over the next few chapters, i'm so sorry


	24. last sunrise in the wasteland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've had this chapter written from the start of planning this fic. it was always my intention to use this, directly inspired by The Road.

Only weeks ago, the sight of the crumbling, broken Boston skyline on the horizon would have made Maggie’s heart leap with joy. She would have stopped and stared at it with intense relief and disbelief that they had made it within tens of miles of the city.

But she feels none of that now as she stares ahead at the grey silhouette, obscured by the mist and the low, dark grey clouds overhead.

They’ve had to stop even though they have no time to. But Kara can’t carry on. She’s slipped in and out of consciousness the whole way from the gas station to wherever they are now. It’s a catch twenty-two situation; Kara has to carry on to survive, but if she carries on, her body will be so exhausted that she’s going to die anyway.

So they sit on the wet sand, Boston to their left and stare out across the murky sea towards a half-sunken ship, at a total loss of what to do. Alex looks utterly defeated. Maggie can’t believe that after all this time, this is the end of the road.

“She’s not going to make it,” Alex says. “Doesn’t matter if there’s a cure or not because she’s not going to make it in time. I’ve spent my whole life protecting her and I failed her when it really mattered.”

“You did everything you could,” Maggie says, tearing her eyes away from where Lucy is sat with Kara’s head in her lap, far enough away for her not to hear their conversation. “You saved her life time and time again.”

“And for what?” Alex says hollowly. “For her to die in Lucy’s arms only miles from Boston? For her body to get buried by the snow?”

Maggie glances up at the clouds and shivers, pulling her knees closer to her chest. 

“You saved her from bounty hunters, cannibals,” Maggie says but she knows her words won’t make any difference. “You saved her from so much. It mattered, all of that mattered.”

“And Cadmus has still won,” Alex says. “They’re taking my sister away from me. They’ve won and I… what more can I do, Maggie? There’s nothing left, there’s…”

She trails off and Maggie is at a complete loss, not for the first time. Alex just continues to stare out across the ocean, but it’s not a distant stare, it’s more focussed, like she’s really thinking about something, still not giving up even though her words make it sound like she’s lost all hope.

“What is it?” Maggie asks and follows Alex’s gaze towards the sunken ship. “What’re you thinking, Alex?”

Alex chews on her bottom lip, her hands curling into the sand. A horrible sinking sensation fills Maggie’s stomach as she begins to piece together where Alex might be going with this.

“There’s only one way Kara’s going to make it,” Alex says. “It’s luck, that’s all we have left. Luck and hope that Kara doesn’t give in and that’s not something any of us can control. The fight has to come from her, and we can drag her to Boston but that still might not be enough.”

“So that’s what we do,” Maggie says. “We try, we hope that we’re lucky -”

“I can’t risk that,” Alex says. “Not without trying every other option. I won’t rely on luck, I can’t.” She’s still staring out at the ship, watching at the waves crash into it.

“Alex, no, you -”

“There could be something out there,” Alex says and finally she looks at Maggie, eyes wide with deluded hope. “What if I don’t go and then Kara dies? I can’t let that happen knowing that there could have been something on that ship to help Kara make it.”

“What makes you think you’re going to even make it to that ship and back?” Maggie says. “It’s freezing, those clouds aren’t just storm clouds, they’re snow clouds, there’s no way you’re going to survive out there!”

“But it’s the only choice I have!” Alex says and Maggie knows that she won’t win this argument. And it’s worse because she knows Alex isn’t being stubborn. Blinded, maybe. But for good reason. This was Kara’s life hanging in the balance and Maggie knows that this is their only choice, however much it seems like it won’t end the way they so desperately want it to. 

Alex is going to put her life in even more danger just so they have a chance of making the last few miles to Boston less of an impossible journey. 

Maggie has never loved her more.

But it doesn’t make this whole thing any less painful.

“You understand, right?” Alex says, quickly, staring back out across the water. “I need you to understand, more than the others, I need you to get why I’m doing this.”

“Of course I get it, but…” Maggie glances up at the sky again. “You don’t have much time.”

“I know,” Alex whispers. “So you’ve gotta promise me something.”

“No, don’t -”

“Those storm clouds are gonna reach us soon, maybe hours if we’re lucky,” Alex says, ignoring Maggie’s half-hearted protest. “Kara can’t survive the snow. She’s barely holding on but maybe she’ll hold on enough to get to Boston if you go before it’s too late. But I can’t leave now without trying to find something, and if I don’t come back within an hour, you have to go. Even if I’m not with you.”

“Alex, I can’t do that, I can’t do this without you, we all need you -”

“You can,” Alex says. “I have to try and give Kara more time before the storm hits. Please, can you do this for me?”

“What about me? I’ll go -”

“No, I can’t risk losing you as well,” Alex says.

“I don’t want to lose  _ you _ , not now, we’ve only just got started, Alex,” Maggie pleads.

But she knows deep down, however much she wants to call Alex selfish for deciding she’s the one who has to go out there, she can’t. Alex is doing this for her sister, she has no other option. If Alex could stay behind, with Maggie, she would. This isn’t Alex running, this is Alex fighting. 

They’ve come so close to having everything. 

Her heart crumbles when Alex kisses her, fierce and determined, pouring everything she has into it because as much as they don’t want to admit it, they don't have many more chances left. Maggie could lose Alex forever, after they've only just begun. 

Maybe nothing is meant to last in this world anymore. Maybe this is just the way things have to be. Maybe if she tells herself that enough times she won’t break completely and she will carry on fighting to get Kara safe when Alex might no longer be by her side.

“I need to talk to Lucy,” Alex says when they part, their foreheads resting against each other’s.

Maggie watches as Alex makes her way over to Lucy and her sister, kneeling down in the sand by Kara’s side. With a deep breath, she stands and joins them, watching as Lucy’s face seems to pale even more.

“I’ll go with you,” she says as soon as Alex finishes and Alex just shakes her head.

“You can’t,” Alex says, resting a hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “You have to stay for Kara. She needs you, Lucy. She loves you, you have to be here when she survives this, okay? She needs you now more than she ever did.”

“We can make it, let’s just leave now,” Lucy says desperately but as soon as she does so, Kara starts coughing again, her body twisting horribly on the sand. Lucy runs a hand through her hair, trying to soothe her and Maggie watches as tears drip off her nose onto her forehead.

“You know it’s a risk we can’t take,” Alex says. “Not until we have no choice.”

Lucy doesn’t say anything but glances at Maggie standing there, the wind whipping her hair, arms crossed to protect herself from the chill.

“And you’re okay with this?” Lucy asks sharply, her anger flashing.

“Of course not,” Maggie says and Alex turns to look at her, guilt on every line of her face. “But Alex has to do this for Kara. There’s no other way.”

“You haven’t changed,” Lucy says, bite to her tone when she turns back to Alex. “Still making reckless choices, putting yourself in danger -”

“Don’t you dare,” Alex growls. “You know this isn’t the same. Kara can’t protect herself anymore, she’s _literally_ powerless. This isn’t some field op, this is the end of the world and I’m the only one who can swim strong enough to make it to that boat and back. You really think I would do this and leave Kara behind without thinking it through?”

Maggie rests a hand on Alex’s shoulder, calming her and feeling the tension flood out of Alex. Both of them are only reacting with anger out of grief. Anger at the world coming out in anger at each other. But the way Lucy’s lip quivers, the way her eyes fill with tears tells her that she’s more heartbroken than she could ever be angry.

“Alex…”

Kara’s stirred out of unconsciousness, but her eyes aren’t focussed, like she isn’t really seeing the world around her anymore.

“Hey, I’m right here,” Alex says, brushing her thumb over Kara’s temple. “I… I’m going to get some help for you.”

“No, don’t go, I want you here,” Kara mumbles and Alex’s jaw clenches as she holds back everything inside.

“I won’t be long, promise,” she says quietly. “I’ve always found a way to help you, I’ll do the same this time.”

Maggie isn’t even sure Kara’s aware of the situation Alex is talking about. Alex seems to think the same and she takes a deep, shuddering breath. Kara’s too weak to protest, her eyes focussed on a world far away from a beach near Boston.

“Okay, but… but you should call Lucy, take her with you” she says and Lucy freezes in her movements, all three of them now certain that Kara is no longer with them. Maggie doesn’t realise she’s crying until she tastes the salt on her lips. “Or James. James can help, too.”

The sound that tears from Lucy is almost a howl, but quieter and somehow more agonising, turning her head to the clouds, her strength crumbling. Alex’s voice trembles with the effort of holding back tears.

“Sure, I’ll take them” she says and the pain in her voice rips at Maggie’s heart as Alex watches her sister fade away in front of her. She understands now more than ever why Alex has to take every chance before they risk it all by moving towards Boston.

Maybe it’s better that Kara doesn’t really know what’s happening. It  _ should _ be better. But whatever pain it’s causing Maggie, it must be infinitely worse for Alex.

“I love you, Kara,” Alex says. “Hold on for me.”

She presses a kiss to Kara’s forehead, lingering there for a second as her shoulders shake before she stands up, her eyes closed as the reality of the situation she’s been forced into hits. She grips Lucy’s hand tightly, passing on every bit of strength she can just so Lucy can find it in herself to carry on when Kara believes she’s in a world long gone, with friends long since dead.

Alex starts to walk down the beach and Maggie follows her, her heart thundering at a furious pace as the time to part gets closer by the second. She isn’t sure she has the strength for this. But if Kara is still holding on, then she can let Alex go.

“Outrun the storm,” Alex says. “Stay as long as you can. Wait for me as long as you can. But you have to go if it gets too close. It’s the only way to save Kara. You have to believe that she’ll get there, it… that’s all that matters.”

“I’ll do everything I can,” Maggie says quietly. 

They haven’t mentioned that there might not even be a cure in Boston. It’s not something they’re even going to let themselves think about because then this will all have been for nothing. She has to believe there’s something there, to justify this pain, this parting as much as it can be.

“Alex.”

Alex turns to face her as she reaches into her inside coat pocket and pulls out the badge she’s carried around since the world ended. She places the cold metal into Alex’s outstretched hand, gripping her wrist with her fingers. The badge glints in the fading light and Alex turns the badge over in her fingers.

“Why…”

“Whatever happens, I’m gonna be with you,” Maggie says. “I’ll know that part of me is with even if you’re not going to let me stay.”

Alex tucks the badge into her pocket and pulls her coat off, folding it neatly on the sand, shivering from head to foot.

“Maggie, I -”

“No, don’t say it,” she says. “If you say it, then I’m not going to let you go, and you have to go.”

Alex sniffs, wiping a hand over her face before she pulls Maggie close, wrapping her arms tight around her. Maggie turns her head into the crook of Alex’s neck, holding on with everything she has, the fabric of Alex’s torn sweater creasing in her hand. When she pulls back, their lips meet for what could be the final time and Maggie never wants to stop.

Maybe the words don’t need to be said.

“I can’t believe it’s taken the end of the world for us to meet,” Alex says and Maggie laughs brokenly, her heart shattering and splintering and there’s no way it’s ever going to be repaired when the one person who had saved her life and given her a reason to survive is leaving.

“It’s been worth it,” Maggie says and Alex sighs and with what feels like a tremendous effort, pulls away. “Every second.”

“I’m coming back,” Alex says. “This isn’t the end, I’m coming back however long it takes me to find you. Wait for me in Boston. I’ll always come back to you.”

And how Maggie wishes she could believe her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you'll notice, the chapter count has been officially set. this is the final showdown, the last stand. i hope you all stay with them until the very end.


End file.
